Neon Genesis Goonvangelion Book 1
by Rick Spiff
Summary: Utterly insane fanfic authors prance through the Evangelion universe. Action! Comedy! Action! Drama! Action! Coarse language! Action! ... Did I mention action? - Rated M for very bad language and later disturbing and violent scenes.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This is tag-team self-insertion fan fiction, set in the Evangelion universe. This is chapter 1 of an epic story, which itself is the first of an epic series. Still here? Good. None of the authors of this work have or lay claim to Neon Genesis Evangelion or the numerous books, movies, TV shows, anime series, and video games parodied in this story. Don't take this too seriously, and may the deity or deities of your choice forgive you for reading this tripe.

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvagelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Prologue: Of Provocations and Pushed Buttons

* * *

Our story began in the comfortable, homely residence of one Andrew Mucha. Here, three young men sat on a well-loved, or rather, a couch that looked like it was Bigfoot's love toy in a previous life. They were about to partake in a rare and dangerous ritual that would test their mental fortitude and physical stamina to the utmost. They would be pitted against one another, facing fist-to-fist... no wait, wrong introductory paragraph. They would be pitted against an army, three men versus a million... no, still wrong one. They would be placed in separate cells, each given a knife, a bit of string, and a... nope. They would each have only twenty hours to arrive at their destination, drop their payload... wrong. They would hunt for a thousand years these dark plains, upon which crawled... sorry, no. They would cook like the wind and... fail. They would harbor the resentment for years to come...

Okay, here it is.

They would be pushed to their limits and beyond, by forces they did not fully understand. They would be tested in a trial that had broken lesser men. They would... watch the entire Evangelion anime in a single sitting. But this was no ordinary anime marathon. They were indulging in a special kind of insanity-the out-of-order marathon.

"Popcorn?" Asked John Genoni, his glasses catching some serious glare off of the television. He had a couch potato build and a soul patch.

Jared Waddell, a blonde made almost entirely of gangly limbs, awkward anglyes, and lecherous smiles, held aloft a giant bowl of the wondrous culinary delight that is microwaved popcorn in reply. "Here," he said simply.

"Tapes?" John asked the third occupant, and resident of the house.

Andy Mucha, tallest of the three, with the build of a wild bear, closed his eyes and ran his hands over a rack of VHS tapes. "Here."

"Are we spiritually prepared?" Jared asked.

John stared at Jared. Well, he turned his head to face the other man, his eyes unseen behind the glare on his glasses. He considered Jared's question for a moment, then moved a little further away.

Andy merely frowned at the question, and pulled out a tape at random, his eyes still closed.

John began, in his best Rayden voice, "Now, for the challenge of the ages..."

"It's guess the episode time!" Andy said, whipping the cover off the video and finding the door to the VCR on the ninth try. He only broke two vases this time.

Jared handed the popcorn off to John in favor of a large multi-device remote control. John began munching on the buttery goodness while Jared limbered up a single finger like a conductor. When Andy finally sat on the couch, Jared's finger descended on the 'play' button with laser precision, and

* * *

Chapter 1: Hope is for the Foolish / Who, What, Where, and Does that Come with Chocolate?

* * *

"What the hell?"

It could have been said by any of them. The thought was certainly mirrored by the two that remained in silent shock. John, minus the bowl of popcorn, was still holding a fistful of the good stuff. Andy stared into the distant horizon, looking thoughtful, as if wondering where his living room went because that was EXACTLY what he was wondering. Jared, who had spoken, was staring at the remote control in his hand as if it had planned the murder of his pet goldfish.

John's hand began to shake, fluffy, buttery goodness falling like plump snowflakes to the grassy knoll the trio were now sitting on. "What just happened?"

Andy stood and slowly turned on the spot before folding his arms over his chest and whistling the X-Files theme.

Casually, John glanced at his friend and said, "Andy. Stop or I will personally kill you with my bare hands."

Towering over John, Andy glared down at his friend's glasses, which were catching glare from the mostly clear sky above. Jared finally stopped staring at the remote and stood, looking past Andy. John eventually abandoned his staring contest with Andy and tried to see what was holding onto Jared's attention. Now that his friends were both standing and within his field of view, Andy took a moment to redouble his glare at both them before turning around to see what held their collective attention like a bear trap around a scrotum.

After a moment, Andy dryly said, "Well, we aren't in Kansas anymore."

And thereby won the Understatement of the Year Award.

Somewhat tearful, "I'd like to thank the Academy..."

Can it.

Interrupting the forth-wall shattering stupidity, Jared started screaming in Andy's face. "Kansas? We don't live in Kansas. I've never even BEEN to Kansas! I DON'T SEE ANY KANSIANS AROUND HERE! WE'RE IN JAPAN!"

"Kansians?" John asked with a raised eyebrow. "And how do you know we're in Japan?"

Jared pointed to the mountain in the distance, framed by numerous sky-scrapers.

"Hey, that's Mt. Fuji," John said, then paled. Quietly, "Oh."

Taking a step back from Jared, Andy muttered, "Well, anyone up for a refund?"

Cicadas hummed loudly in the background. John turned to the thin man. "Jared?"

"Yes?"

"This always happens when you hog the remote!" Andy yelled.

"It's your remote!" Jared protested.

"Hey, it's my turn to yell at him!" John elbowed Andy in the side.

"I'll hand him over when I'm done!"

"What makes you think I had anything to do with this?" Jared snapped.

"Step aside!" John shoved at Andy, who calmly took the assault without budging.

"You were the one who modified it!" Andy accused.

"I just fixed the battery connections! We didn't see it after that... wait a minute. That was three months ago. This thing's been in your _couch_ for three months?" Jared dropped the remote, this words and actions making the word 'couch' come out like 'sewer.' He wiped his hands on his pants several times.

John scooped up the remote in a labeled evidence bag and tucked it away for later examination. "Damn it. Guys, let's just go into town and see if someone can lead use to the American ambassador. I think I'd like to go home."

* * *

The grassy knoll turned out to be the most interesting feature of a decent-sized park in the middle of a large city. Very large. The place looked a lot like Tokyo. Well, a much cleaner Tokyo, with shiny new buildings, and everything much more spread out and modernized and very large roads with odd markings and... actually, it looked nothing like Tokyo.

It also appeared to be deserted.

Not that the Goons noticed or cared.

"Damn it, this is all your fault!" John shouted.

"My fault?" Jared feigned shock.

"You had the remote!" John stated, jabbing a finger at Jared's chest.

"But you were the one insisting we watch Eva." Jared retorted.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Anime... Japan," Jared said, making a 'follow my line of reasoning' gesture.

John was prepared to go to no such place, and continued to glare at his friend.

From a few feet away, Andy commented. "All these signs are written in a different language. It's like, Japanese or something. We're going to have a hard time finding the embassy."

John rounded on the tallest Goon. "And you! Which video did you put in the VCR?"

"How would I know?" Andy asked reasonably.

"Yeah, how would he know?" Jared asked as well. "Andy's too dumb too-"

"Shut up!" John snapped. Turning back to the huge man. "Andy! They were your videos! You were putting in the tapes!"

Andy shrugged helplessly. "I wasn't paying attention. It was a random-order marathon. Isn't that the idea?"

John wiped his brow. Dealing with his friends was sometimes a stressful activity. Scratch that. It was a stressful activity all of the time, even when they weren't around (which seemed like never). He'd meant for months now to take up a less challenging hobby, like solving that world hunger problem, or maybe that global warming problem. Maybe build a time machine, or refute a few thermodynamic laws. Something easy. His friends were just too difficult sometimes.

Movement caught his eye. "What episode are we in?" He asked. "Any guesses?"

Jared attempted to be the voice of reason. Go ahead and laugh. "We don't know if we're in Eva. We could be in Ranma or Ghost in the Shell or Lain or any number of anime with Japan in it. Hell, we might just be in Japan, and not in any anime at all."

"Japan's not real," Andy insisted.

"Then were does anime come from?" Jared asked.

After some 'thought,' Andy answered, "The comic book store."

"I rest my case," Jared sighed. Then went pale. "Wait. Everybody pray we aren't in some tentacle porn. In the meantime, I suggest you two start learning Japanese."

"And what do you think you're going to do?" Andy asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Neither noticed their friend doing some runner's stretches.

Jared puffed out his chest and thumped it. "Play the completely silent and apparently stupid Ninja sidekick with incredible martial arts skills."

John rolled his eyes, popped his back, and stretched his hamstrings. "How 'bout we play a trio of clueless American teenagers without passports or knowledge of ten words of the language."

"Yeah, this is like self-insert fanfiction. We could just be ourselves, and learn Japanese in a couple of weeks from tapes or something. I put that in a story once."

"Then we'd conveniently be turned into giant robot pilots," Andy said enthusiastically, drooling somewhat. "Mecha," he panted.

"Plug suits... Boobies!" Jared crowed.

"We are in Eva, guys. Someone here speaks English."

"Eva?" Andy said, snapping out of his daze.

"Yes."

"Certain?" Jared asked.

"Absolutely," John said, finishing his stretches.

"How can you tell?" Jared asked.

The ground shuddered. The buildings around the trio started retracting into the ground.

"Well," John gestured around them. "There's that little detail. And That, I believe, is an Angel."

Andy and Jared heard the Capitalization in their friend's voice, and turned to see what else he was pointing at. At the other end of town, Evangelion Unit-01, in its familiar purple-and-green glory, stepped out of a building. A similar building appeared a dozen blocks away and disgorged the fire-engine red Unit-02. Both units immediately begin attacking a large, multi-color monster that looked for all the world like a giant kite filled with jello. The familiar bone-white face on the front was cast in a manic grin, and seemed to look right through the three Americans.

"Gentlemen," said John. "I suggest running."

"I propose a screaming clause be added to that suggestion."

"Votes on the motion?" John asked, raising his own hand. "Aye."

"Aye," said Andy.

"Aye," said Jared.

"Motion approved."

The three began running and screaming down the street, back towards the park of their arrival.

* * *

Dozens of blocks away as the crow flies, and more than a mile underground, brown eyes followed scrolling information displays, flew over tactical area maps of the city, and glanced worryingly at the main holographic view screen. Slim fingers rubbed absently at a heavy silver cross hung from a sturdy silver necklace, the surface polished from frequent handling. Long legs carried a petite form with purple hair over the grey floor's anti-slip coating, sensible shoes landing with a nearly inaudible clack, clack, clack.

Major Misato Katsuragi, Special Commander of Combat Resources, NERV (on special assignment from the JSSDF), stopped pacing and flicked her purple locks over one shoulder while the communications light for Evangelion Unit-02 switched from red to green. A girl's voice rang out over the Central Dogma's speaker system.

"Major, I hear civilians screaming."

The lucky icon hanging over the Major's bosom got another worried rubbing. "From which direction, Asuka?" She asked.

There was a pregnant pause before the communications light changed colors again. "In that direction."

Without needing a verbal command, one of the technicians activated the directional feed from Unit-02. The red arm of the biomechanical beast extended away from the camera, pointing at Hideaki Park. The view was devoid of human life. Also, the three Americans could not be seen.

Misato spared a glance at a camera watching Unit-01's fight with the Angel. Currently the two monsters were locked hand-hand, trying to force the other to it's knees. Biting her lip, Misato looked back at the screen showing the peaceful park. "Asuka, move into the park and check for anyone that hasn't made it to a shelter."

The comm. light went green again. "Do look like a recovery crew to you?"

"Just do it," said Misato.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at ground level...

"I wish I knew where we were. I could probably find a shelter and get us out of this mess," said John.

Jared, leaning against a sign with Kanji on it giving the name of the park and brief directions to the nearest shelter, shrugged helplessly.

Then the ground shook again. The three turned to see a massive red robot stomping into view. Not just shake-the-earth stomping as giant robots tend to do no matter how careful the pilot, but the deliberate, angry stomping normally employed by three year olds throwing a tantrum.

While John and Andy prepared to bolt from the scene, Jared dropped to his knees and began screaming rapturously. "It is the goddess!"

* * *

In Central Dogma, Asuka's voice rang out again. "I can see three people. They don't look Japanese to me. One of them is bowing to my Unit-02 though. Probably nuts or something."

Misato shrugged a what-can-you-do shrug. "Well, they aren't in any danger right there. Tell them to stay put and I'll have a med crew come check them once we're done. And mind the Angel."

* * *

In Hideaki Park.

"Andy, quick check, Asuka is American right?" John asked urgently.

Andy blinked. "Actually, I think she's German."

Jared inserted his two cents. "No, he's right. Asuka is American but with Japanese and German heritage. She was returning from Germany where she went to school and lived with her... was it adoptive mother or grandmother?"

John fought down the snarl rising in his throat. These two could fall through a hole in time, land in the middle of a WWII battle, and debate the city and street address of the factory that built the guns killing them. "GETTING TO THE POINT," Deep breath. "Can she understand us?"

Jared scratched his chin in thought. "Well, you could try swearing at her in English and if she kills you, then we have our answer." Never mind 'thought.'

"Shut up, Jared."

He smirked. "Bite me."

John's hands came up, fingers hooked like claws, face vicious. "Maybe I will this time..."

* * *

Far above, Asuka watched one of the Americans try to choke the thin one. "Um, I think that they'll kill each other before the med team gets there, Misato."

Should could hear the Major sigh over the comm.

* * *

Jared calmly threw off John, careful not to break any bones in process, and faced the giant mecha. Screaming at the head, "Hey, hot stuff! How about you, me, a can or two of whipped cream, some cherries, and a nice private place for the night?"

* * *

Japan was a weird, and often stupid, place. And it was full of perverts. And Kaji was around far too little. And Angels kept attacking things. All in all, there was very little to like about Japan. But at least the Japanese perverts had a grasp of subtlety.

This asshole was begging to be smashed like a bug. "PERVERT! I'll kill him myself!" Shrieked Asuka, her grip of the controls white-knuckled.

* * *

While a foot the size of a military flatbed rose off the ground, dripping grass clippings and bits of flattened squirrel, Jared stood his ground, looking innocent, cute, and adorably stupid. "Who, me?"

John's hands clasped empty air. "Where the FUCK is my baseball bat?"

Then the size 200 foot crashed down next to trio.

None flinched.

"Successful test?" Said Andy.

"Indeed, now how do we survive?" Questioned Jared.

"I propose running and screaming," Andy proposed.

"Votes on the motion?" John asked, raising his own hand. "Aye."

"Aye," said Andy.

"Aye," said Jared.

"Motion approved," John said, and turned towards the mecha. "Shouldn't be taking care of that Angel?"

The three made tracks, screaming their heads off.

* * *

From within the mecha, the furious redhead shouted, "COME BACK HERE YOU JERKS!"

* * *

A few hundred yards away, hiding behind a small building, one that hadn't retracted below ground, Andy consulted with Jared.

"Now what?"

"Simple, like that one episode, we wait until Asuka goes down and get into the plug where it's safe."

"You mean where you can be close to Asuka," John put in, "And I don't appreciate the innuendo in that sentence."

Jared shrugged. "Bite me."

John ignored him and looked around the corner. "I don't think that will work."

"Why not?" Jared asked, pouting.

"She's already left us alone."

Jared also peeked around the corner. "Damn it! I told you guys not to hide!"

"Who was screaming 'run for your lives' a few seconds ago?" Andy said testily.

"Some other pedestrian," Jared insisted.

Andy mutely pulled out a camcorder, flipped out the LCD screen, and hit the playback button. On the screen, a jerky image of Jared running from crimson Eva feet is shown. The speaker dutifully plays back the wind noise, running feet hitting pavement, and Jared demanding that they run for their lives. Andy clicked off the camcorder after a few seconds, and tucked it away somewhere.

Jared gave his friends a suspicious look, and stroked his chin in thought, his tightly closed lips letting pass sounds, but not words. "Hmm..."

The other Americans stared at him expectantly, but when Jared just repeated the motion, ADHD took over and they lost interest.

"Now, if we managed to get Asuka's attention, then maybe Misato saw us." He paused, noticing Jared and Andy starting to drool. "She may send a medical crew out to us in case we may be injured or something."

"So what's the plan? Hide in that building and snipe arrivals? Break some arms and demand an audience with NERV? Secure a few vehicles and ride into the wilderness of Japan Road Warrior style?"

"Any good ideas?" Jared asked, ducking a wild right hook from Andy. "How about we invade NERV?"

"Yeah!" Andy jumped for joy.

"Oh, so you want to run from NERV security now?" John put in.

"I hadn't thought about that..." Jared pouted.

"Big surprise."

Andy, meanwhile, was lost to the world. "And then we'll assault the... SIDE ENTRANCE! And Jared will come in from above, M16 blazing! BRRRAP! BRRRAP!" Andy continued making shooting noises, and talked at length about tanks and air support and attacking in waves and using an S2 device to 'soften up the commie bastards.'

Ignoring the ranting man, Jared and John held conference.

"Well fine mister smarty pants, how do you propose that we get into NERV, the most secretive and powerful agency in the United Nations?" Jared asked.

"The American way," John replied.

"Buy them out?" Jared asked, perplexed. "We don't have any yen."

"I had meant through trickery and deceit."

"Ah. Well, I'll leave you to it, then."

John scowled, then jerked a thumb at Andy. "What about him?"

"Murder!" Andy exclaimed, salivating. "Military firepower!"

John casually slapped Andy several times, bringing the Otaku back to reality. "Andy, we don't have any guns, bombs, tanks, missiles, battleships, torepedos, hovergunships, N2 mines, or mass production Evangelions."

"Yeah, yeah, but it would be cool if we did have any of those things," Andy said with a gleam in his eye.

"Can't argue with that," Jared pointed out.

"Even so, that isn't exactly the best way to win them over," John countered.

"Besides, if we had mass production models, we wouldn't need NERV. We could just fly back to the States."

Andy's brain lurched into sarcasm mode. "Ah, Yes. And then we'd be attacked by 'our' military which could kick these wimps' asses from here to Pluto!"

At the distinctive sound of approaching ambulances, Jared and Andy looked around the corner in slight worry. Jared sighed. "Well, we better come up with something quick. John, what's your plan?"

Silence.

Jared and Andy retreated from the corner and stared intently at the John-shaped hole in the air. For dramatic effect, a chilly wind blew past them, rather loudly.

"John?" Andy asked.

The echo was deafening.

* * *

The ambulances were not far behind John's disappearance. The EMTs made a show of inspecting Andy and Jared for injuries, then organized a search party to find John. After a few minutes of searching, they found him.

Broken pipes framed the blast crater like the legs of spiders dropped into the inferno of candle flame. Loose wires, obviously still carrying electricity, took advantage of the water dripping slowly from the broken pipes to spark intermittently. John himself laid face-down in the center of the depressing, debris surrounding him almost in waves. Blood was everywhere. The American's limbs were at odd angles. Upon approach, Jared noted a sign listing a local union as being responsible for the work, and promptly got rid of it.

Andy reached the bottom of the crater first. "Yep, it's him."

Jared stood at the crater's edge, shouting in dismay, "I can't leave you alone for two seconds!"

"Dibs on his hat!" Andy crowed.

John's body began to twitch as EMTs finished checking him for injuries and strapped him to a gurney to remove him from the site. Like a grave robber, Andy snatched John's baseball cap as the semi-corpse passed, only to toss it back because it didn't fit.

Jared wondered where John had gotten the hat from.

Piled into the ambulances, the conscious duo realized that a familiar leaf was stenciled on the side of the vans.

"Canadians!" Andy exclaimed.

It's not a maple leaf. It's a fig leaf.

"Canadians!" Jared exclaimed.

Could we get past the Canadian joke, please?

"Holy cow, John mysteriously getting killed is going to get us into NERV!" Jared exclaimed.

That's better.

Andy was in a musing mood as he sat next to John's gurney. "So if John dies, who gets his stereo?"

The EMTs apparently understood none of the American's rambling, but the gist was clear to them. They exchanged glances, all thinking that if one of them died in the desert, the others would descend on their fallen comrade like vultures to use his shin bones for flutes. Though, none of them could play, nor had any use for a flute.

* * *

The battle above was quite done and over with (NERV victorious) by the time John's body was dumped on a hospital bed deep in NERV. Jared and Andy could only guess that the pilots were okay as the EMTs left them alone by backing away slowly and maintaining eye contact instead of dashing from the room in a flurry of organized chaos.

Jared and Andy shared a glance, then looked around the hospital room they'd been left in.

The same size as the room Shinji got in the anime. Large enough for two patients, but with not enough equipment for monitoring two people. Subdued lighting. Light green walls. White floor. Disinfectant smell common to hospitals the world over. The lone door slid open, and was locked. No windows. Quiet. The duo shared a second glance. The last time they'd been in a situation like this...

Jared turned away, and tried to sound sagely. "Perhaps... we three stones have altered this mighty river's path."

Andy chimed in with a Yoda voice. "Hmmm, change good, but know this, beware the dark side of Eva. Strong, it is."

John suddenly sat up, acting perfectly healthy. "Vultures."

The other two screamed in terror and mimed Little Takahashi Devil Pose #35: We've been discovered!

"John! You're alive!" Andy exclaimed happily.

"I didn't take your hat!" Jared pleaded. Then, "How'd you do that, man?"

John looked confused for a second, then ran his fingers through his hair. "Hat?" The word came out distorted. He made a face and spit a foaming white tablet from his mouth. "Sorry, trade secret."

"And Asuka didn't lose as far as we can tell." Andy offered.

"Oh my God! We've changed the entire plot of Eva!"

Well, I mean, _yeah_.

"You bastards!" Andy shouted at no-one in particular.

Ignoring Andy's remark, "So, did it work? Are we in NERV?"

"Hell yeah," Jared said with a smirk.

John assumed a Montgomery Burns pose. "Excellent." Then something on his arm registered in his peripheral vision. He glanced down at a tube leading from his arm to an IV bag, the clear plastic showing off the liquid happy juice, but giving prying eyes no information as to what it was. Most of the label, infuriatingly, was in Kanji. The single word in English listed the contents as a powerful sedative. A familiar knot of syllables familiar to the American only because he knew to avoid the chemical cocktail coursing through his veins like a drunk frat boy hitting the town in a stolen Ferrari. John looked resigned as he groaned, "This isn't good."

Then he passed out for real.

An allergic reaction wasn't the problem-unless 'allergic' was classified as surreal humor with a side of incomprehensible gibberish.

"You know, this would make a great fan fic. I mean, one of the self-insert characters getting drugged in like, the third scene? Fuckin' fantastic! And then we'd do a big dream sequence, like in 2001!" Jared's enthusiasm proved infectious. Andy immediately began ad-libbing.

"With mermaids! And dancing giraffes!"

"Yeah! And a big ball, everyone in dresses... we'd do a musical number!" Jared exclaimed.

"To something by Marylin Manson!" Andy added.

John slurred to semi-wakefulness for a single sentence. "A vury murry un-berfday to you..."

"Yes! Excellent!" Jared yelled, turning to Andy. "Quick! Get me a piece of paper. This genius _must_ be immortalized!"

Unhelpfully, Andy protested. "This is Japan, what makes you think anyone would have paper."

"This is a government institution. I shouldn't be able to spit without hitting at least two reams of the stuff!" Jared countered.

And then the door opened. The sometimes-fan-fiction authors turned towards the sound, and Angels sang. Sunlight slashed through the heavens and... oh wait, they're underground. In any case, the inspiration for all this silliness was the arrival of three of the four main babes of the series.

A saucy saunter carried Major Misato Katsuragi through the door. And her dress, and jacket, and badge, and unmentionables, and all of the wonderfully Misato-y bits that made the hot Major a hot Major. This included a sharp gaze reserved for the sort of people that tortured little kids for fun, and three Americans who just interrupted a battle for the fate of humanity. Since she had three Americans standing before her, and each of them was at least partially responsible for interrupting a battle for the fate of humanity, the sharp gaze was on them like a razor blade on a soft trachea.

Dr. Ritsuko Akagi barely offered the vertically-oriented duo a first glance as she entered, having reviewed the security camera footage en-route. The clipboard computer was tucked neatly under her arm, off, as she took up an easy stand to the Major's left.

Asuka Langley Zeppelin Sohryu was still wearing her fire-engine red plug suit. A yellow towel was looped around her neck, wet and limp. It was the type of towel usually described with words of derision, decrying inadequacies. It seemed sufficient to have thoroughly dried every inch of her plug suit, while leaving her hair wet and slick. Blue eyes blazed in barely- constrained fury, perfectly complimenting her rigid, aggressive stride. Cheeks colored by more than a modest blush framed the angry orbs.

The one on the bed was dressed in a black T-shirt with some kind of English lettering on it, faded blue jeans, and Chuck Taylors. His brown hair was meticulously trimmed, and a pair of stylish glasses were perched squarely on his round face despite the blanket underneath him looking like the aftermath of a wrestling match.

The taller one, standing, had short but unkempt black hair and beady brown eyes that darted across everything with an air of suspicion. He wore a massive Hawaiian shirt that consumed enough fabric to clothe at least a dozen Misato clones, so brightly colored and chaotically patterned that it hurt the eye to focus on it for more than a few seconds. His shorts weren't much better, but it was the worn sandals that made no sense. He appeared to be missing a fishing pole.

The smallest of the group, fit and trim, was dressed in slacks and a white undershirt over a lightly muscled frame. Thick blond hair crouched on his skull like an unruly mop super-glued in place. Blue-gray eyes behind slanted glasses stared at Asuka with anything but prurient intentions. He looked nervous, but paid no mind to security cameras, the armed Major, the authoritarian doctor, or to his associates. He had eyes only for the redhead Goddess.

To say that Jared was... indelicate in matters of negotiation is an understatement of epic proportions. The last person that called him subtle, in all seriousness, had literally died of irony. Nonetheless, Andy did not have a sterling track record of speaking equivocally with anyone, and his view of the female of the species was somewhat... unusual. Hell, he didn't talk to most people, period. So it was that Jared, against the good judgment of pretty much everyone, had to play spokesman for the trio.

"Ah... hello," he began tentatively.

Misato demanded identification and an explanation of why they weren't in shelters during the attack. The two standing boys stared at her dumbly. Well, the tall one looked at the wall behind her like it had kidnapped his dog, and the shorter one peered at her bust like a starving man who had just found a feast prepared by a gourmet chef.

He actually licked his lips before speaking directly to her cleavage. "Sorry babe, I only know about five words worth of Japanese, not counting food and cars."

Asuka's glare was so sharp she could have used it to skin tomatoes. "I'm translating," she said, the words coming out like poison.

Andy pulled back, distancing himself from his friend as a pedestrian would try to distance themselves from a gasoline-filled tanker crashing into a freight truck loaded with TNT.

Jared's smile was huge, a thousand innuendos hanging on the tip of his tongue. "A pleasure, Ms. Sohryu, as always."

Misato repeated her demand, glaring at Jared as she delivered it.

Jared pounced on the opening even as Asuka was opening her mouth. "An explanation? Sure. We have no idea how we got here, but the last thing I clearly remember before we showed up outside of Tokyo-3 was stupid here," Jared jerked a thumb at Andy "Putting the next Eva tape in the VCR. There was some special effects, then WHAMMO! We're in Tokyo-3. Actually, we weren't sure which Tokyo this was at first, but I guess we're lucky, eh?" He posed like he had just won the Nobel prize.

Asuka stared in shock for a minute, then spoke rapidly to Misato in Japanese. "He's an idiot, something about Evangelions and tapes I think. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe he's got brain damage. Maybe he escaped from asylum nearby and he bites people for fun and needs to be locked up."

Misato actually considered this for a moment, letting the silence drag out. Watching Jared's smile droop like ice cream on a hot summer afternoon.

Then the knocked-out American sat up abruptly. Not 'roused from slumber' sat up, but bolted instantly to the upright position, eyes still closed behind his glasses, which caught a lot of glare when he moved.

Loudly, he announced, "WELCOME TO THE MAIN EVENT! LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLEEEE!" Then collapsed onto the bed, snoring loudly.

While drugged kids, drunken frat boys, and wild satanic orgies had their place, this was a military base, and they were still on full alert. Misato turned to Asuka and told her to creatively threaten the lecherous one.

Asuka grinned evilly. "Misato says to cut the shit or she'll shoot you in the kneecap."

The tall boy leaned into the view, face curious. "Which one?" He asked the pilot.

The shorter shoved his friend aside. "Later, Andy."

The big one just smiled and said, "Well if it's my left kneecap I wouldn't mind as much."

More shoving. "I said not now, Andy."

The Major and the Doctor exchanged exasperated expression excessively and exclusively extending an exhausting over-use of similar words.

Misato quickly told Asuka to press them a little harder.

"Now she says she'll just shoot you in the nuts... Both of them. So spit it out." She didn't wait for the two arguing Americans to pay attention to her. She was the beautiful and powerful Asuka Langley-Sohryu, pilot of NERV's mightiest weapon, and when she talked, men listened. Whether they wanted to or not.

They listened. They stopped arguing.

Andy had put himself up against a wall again, and was eyeing the nearest vent like a rat finding an escape hatch on a sinking ship. Jared, fearless, opened his mouth, apparently to see just how far down his gullet his foot would fit before he was knocked unconscious by more sensible and violent parties. Or maybe he just had a death wish. Or maybe he was insane. Or maybe the sight of Asuka in a plug suit had shut off his meager higher brain functions. Certainly, he was NOT following my carefully prepared, perversion-free script, damn it!

He took a few steps towards Asuka, smiled again as he stopped just out of striking distance, and spoke. "I assure you personally that what fallows is nothing but the complete truth. While I would like nothing better to whisk you personally away for an evening to wine and dine, then fuck your brains out, I have more pressing matters to attend to." He ignored the way color rose to Asuka's cheeks and her hands balled into fists. Everyone ignored John's mumbling. "Namely, surviving. I take it living here with no identity, no history, no records and no one to trust can't be a good thing, so it's your help I need. Soon, however, I believe it's my help that you'll be needing."

Misato tapped her foot impatiently while she listened to Asuka's translation. They were crazy. This one was, certainly. The tall one looked more like a caged animal than a person, and the third one-who might normally be sane-was drugged out of his mind. Couldn't she get a god damn _name_ out of them?

However, Asuka had enough. Lip twitching, she whipped out a wooden mallet, and paused halfway to bringing it down on Jared's head. The mallet _was_ perfect for pounding down perverts, but she was really going to need both hands free if she was going to choke him to death. Decisions, decisions…

Jared slid out of the path of the first lunge, almost looking like he did it by reflex. Asuka turned her attack, aiming up to rake at his eyes. He slid away again, as slippery as hot grease in puddle of warm spit sitting on melting ice. The third attack he blocked, and continued to move around, leading Asuka in a large circle through the room as he held her off with a bemused smirk. After Asuka knocked away John's IV stand, Jared kicked his friend off of the bed and used it (the bed) as a shield.

Misato sighed and called for security using the room's intercom, noting that the tall one had moved next to the Doctor, apparently ready to use her as a shield in much the same way Jared was using the hospital bed.

Then he did something odd, which was odd in and of itself, since everything he had done so far had been odd, and this last 'odd' thing was actually quite predictable. He shouted, "NINJA VANISH!"

Andy, who had been edging towards the light switch, and not Ritsuko, killed the lights. Asuka's scream of frustration almost drowned out the crash of the hospital bed hitting the floor.

In the darkness, John spoke. "Half a league, half a league, half a league onward. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred."

Ritsuko hit the switch only seconds later, to find the two conscious Americans gone, and Asuka's wrist caught in the remains of the hospital bed.

Then a string of muttered curses drew the attention of the NERV officers to Jared, hanging from the ceiling by his fingernails, and Andy, gripping some surface conduits in the corner. Jared, upon realizing he'd been spotted, quit cursing.

John was still partially upright, and spoke again. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for Asuka is in pursuit and that Valley's looking mighty fine in comparison."

"Amen, brotha." Andy and Jared replied simultaneously.

Asuka snarled something in the language of emotions. Jared dropped to the floor. He sighed, and did the first thing that came to mind.

He quoted anime.

"My name is Jared Waddell." As Andy dropped to the floor behind him like a predator, the shorter American actually looked abashed. "Sorry about this."

* * *

Twenty minutes of talk had John on a new bed, Asuka bandaged up, Ryoji Kaji on hand to translate, and confusion throttling the minds of the NERV ladies.

The new bed and bandages were policy. Kaji was called in because Asuka refused to 'endure' Jared any more.

The confusion was thanks to one Andy Mucha, who was moving his mouth and making sounds in response to a bewildering array of questions for Kaji. 'Answer,' being, of course, not exactly the right word.

John had woken at some point, but a new IV had come part and parcel with the new bed. The duct tape over his mouth was care of Asuka.

"This is crazy," Jared commented.

"Mmmrghff," John agreed.

"I know, but some more work and it'll work. Have some faith!"

"MmmRRRRghhhummm."

"Trust me, this story idea is brilliant. It even gives me another idea for how to handle Asuka. Man, she is short tempered."

"MmmmMMmmmm."

"Yeah, maybe if I wasn't such a per-HEY! This is all Andy's fault anyhow."

John didn't reply. Probably because there was nothing more to be said, probably because his words were falling on truly deaf ears. Even possibly because he couldn't actually make out any words, and was more profoundly unable to think clearly than the East Indian dope smoking team. But if anyone had to guess, it was probably because Andy was busy using John's bed to hit Jared in the face, and John was a polite man, waiting for Andy to finish before he offered his commentary.

"Mmmmnnnmmnnmnmrrrr."

Kaji pointed at John and asked Ritsuko, "Isn't anyone going to unhook that kid from the bag?"

Misato shook her head. Asuka shook her head. Jared woke up and shook his head. Andy bashed Jared on the noggin and shook his head. John leapt to his feet, thrust a fist in the air, muttered something, shook his head, and collapsed. Andy caught him on the way down with the bed, then went back to ans-tal-making sounds at Kaji.

A few minutes later, when Jared woke up, he pulled out the IV and began tying a dizzying array of knots in the plastic tube.

Kaji appeared done with his interrogation for the moment. In Japanese, he asked Ritsuko how long John would be out.

Ritsuko answered her colleague in their native tongue. "It may be a while. He's taken in a lot. I don't know how he survived the explosion with no loss of limb, no burn marks, nothing. He was just twitching and was covered in blood. It's the oddest thing."

Jared put down his IV-cat knot. "Um, from the looks you're giving John there, I would assume you're wondering what happened to him?"

Kaji spoke for the group. "Among other things."

"Somehow John has hired Hollywood's greatest propmen and recreated a scene out of Total Recall in under fifteen seconds." Andy said.

Everyone stared.

"I don't think so. There's no such scene in Total Recall."

"Yes there is," Andy insisted. "The one with the guys that Arnold kills."

"You just described every action movie starring Arnold Swarzenagger. Look, somehow John came up with a pint of movie blood, found a nearby location damaged from a missed round from the pistols the Evas use and made like Prince's career."

Everyone stared at Jared.

Misato said something, Kaji translating immediately. "And does John usually carry around pints of human blood?"

Andy and Jared shrugged, Andy answering, "Only when he needs to."

Jared blinked. "Seriously? You've known him longer than I have."

"Actually, I have no idea where-"

Jared pointed a finger at Misato. "Wait, you said human blood?"

The Major nodded.

Jared licked his lips, then went back to his knots.

Ritsuko's words, translated by Kaji, "His same blood type. If it was corn syrup of something similar, we'd have detected it, but the only thing we couldn't find was the wound."

Andy was suddenly standing over John's prone form. "You slick SOB."

Misato's cell rang. She answered it quickly.

"Moshi moshi?" Her back went ramrod straight a second later, and she began answering questions in rapid-fire Japanese. Even to the clueless Americans, her replies sounded very formal.

Andy whispered to Jared, "Must be Gendo on the line."

Jared whispered back, "Don't you just love the way, her jacket parts and her tits stick out when she comes to attention?"

Kaji whispered to the pair, "Item one, all you get to do is enjoy the view. Item two, I'm probably under too much stress right now, but I actually believe your story."

Jared to Andy, "What did you tell him?"

Andy to no-one in particular, "I was being asked questions?"

Misato shouted in surprise. Kaji reacted in kind, Ritsuko lodging her complaint over his words. Then Asuka joined in the din of Japanese yelling.

"Japanese is the most awesome language for reaming someone out." Jared observed.

Andy tapped at his chin in 'thought.' "I suspect 'baka' is a term of mutual respect."

Misato hung up her phone, offered a brief explanation to the others, with lots of eye-catching shrugging.

Ritsuko finally sat down with her head in her hands, muttering. Asuka grabbed the only other available chair, looking sick.

Silence claimed the room like the cold hand of death on a wintry November afternoon, about three p.m. Wednesday. Forty-three degrees with a five mile per hour wind out of the northeast. Slightly overcast. Possible frost after nightfall.

Andy began waving his arms around like a maniac, which got the attention of exactly no-one because everyone knew he was a complete maniac by this point. "Heeellloooo? Are we suddenly invisible?"

This touched off another round of impassioned arguing in a foreign language.

Andy whispered to Jared, "Does this remind you of..."

"Yes."

Kaji said, and got the Americans' attention, the unconscious git excluded. "Well fellas, I don't know who you are, but it seems that you made quite an impression on the old man. Welcome to NERV."

Andy and Jared made high fives and danced victoriously, and very badly. "Fan fiction convention saves us again!" They crowed.

Asuka pulled out the mallet.

End Chapter 1

**

* * *

**

**A note from the author:** Hello, and welcome! There's nothing in here you need to read to enjoy the story, so if you're in a hurry, move on! If you stuck around, prepare to be educated! Okay, I'm going to cover some basics in this note. Namely, this isn't the original form of the TGE story. This story used to be in script format, kind of like a movie or a play (ever read Shakespeare's work?), but beefed up more. It's a strange product of the anime fanfiction clique that spawned the idea. It works well for drafting out stories, but in this case, we felt the story didn't deserve or need "real" writing effort. We've let it languish thusly. Not to long ago, however, something weird happened. One of my co-authors wrote up a scene in this story where we used a joke from a primetime TV show. To put it bluntly, the joke sucked. I mean, it was horrible compared to even our lame efforts in this tale. Even though we've yet to admit it ourselves, I think it's pretty clear now that this story is aiming higher than we thought. It was supposed to be surreal humor that went nowhere, and now its… well, I'm getting ahead of myself. You'll have to read it to see where we went (should I say still going?) with this concept. The work, after all, speaks for itself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** This is tag-team self-insertion fanfiction, set in the Evangelion universe. You've read the first bit, right? Still here? Good. None of the authors of this work have or lay claim to Neon Genesis Evangelion or the numerous books, movies, TV shows, anime series, and video games parodied in this story. Don't take this too seriously, and may the deity or deities of your choice forgive you for reading this tripe.

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 2: Who was that Masked Man? / Unfamiliar Everything

* * *

Fire spanned the horizon.

Burning buildings lit the cityscape in a hellish glow of red and orange. Tangled wrecks that used to be tanks and guns lay in ruin alongside whole fields of burning flesh once called soldiers. Wreckage of buildings, destroyed vehicles, and dead bodies shared space with spent ammunition on the battlefield, while a towering monstrosity of death painted gunmetal gray stood alone in the center of a crater over a thousand meters across.

The pilot of this walking nightmare was only getting started. Inside the cockpit, he let loose with an unearthly howl, despite the fact it would mess up the formatting. "!"

God damn it.

And just to piss off the narrator, the gunmetal gray Evangelion did likewise. "!"

With what would have been a halfway-decent introduction laid to ruin like much of the abused cityscape around the screaming behemoth, it locked eyes on the two targets standing at the edge of the crater.

Evangelions Unit-03 and 05, containing Andy's only link to his own world, and his two greatest rivals, Jared and John.

Each unit's armor was cracked in numerous places, scars from their recent struggles. The shoulder guards bulged grotesquely, tendrils of Angel infection wrapped around the plates. The alien appendages reflect the fiery glow of the leveled city, glistening like the wet mottled carapace of an alien hive queen.

More than a mile away, hiding behind what cover they could find, what remains of the JSSDF stood in awe, watching the three-way clash of titans. Invading NERV had been easy. Taking out the Evangelion weapon systems hadn't slowed them in the least. Unfortunately, that hadn't slowed the Evangelions either. Tearing into the JSSDF like armor-piercing rounds through so much wet toilet paper, the massive bio-mechanical war machines had only met their match when an Angel showed up in the middle of the fight, and infected two of the Evangelions. For now, the monsters battled each other, for now, the JSSDF could go about its business. But did the all-too-human soldiers stand a chance against God's weapons? Did they stand any chance at all?

But none of the monsters notices or cared about this, being too busy with going 'Godzilla.'

"BUUHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!" Andy cackled at pavement-cracking volume. "IT'S TIME TO FINISH YOU OFF!"

Evangelion Unit-04 exploded into motion, metal-shod feet thundering across the battlefield, closing rapidly with the infected Unit-03. As the man-made Golem closed in on its Angelic target, it reached behind its back and grabbed an object with its right hand. A pole came free, extended, and in an instant, the progressive scythe was activated. In the next second, it was descending towards 03's head, the blade vibrating millions of times per second.

The weapon's arc concluded with deadly force, stopping mere centimeters from the hideous grinning visage of the possessed Unit-03, which was blocking the blow with an appropriately massive Murasume.

"SON OF A-" The remainder of Andy's scream was cut off by Unit-03 pulling back. Off-balance, Unit-04 tumbled forward, barely blocking a sneaky follow-up from the infected Evangelion. The two monstrous mecha quickly became a blurred nightmare of destruction and chaos as their progressive weapons slammed into each other with murderous force. Hundreds of times over the next few seconds they clashed, countless techniques called upon. Buildings and pavement alike crushed by mere proximity. The typhoon of destruction, cast about by dueling titans, shattering everything in their path.

The pair smashed, sliced, skewered, and otherwise completely obliterated the remaining landscape around the wreckage that used to be Tokyo-3 until Andy pointed wildly. "AN OPENING!"

Unit-03 actually looked around, growling in confusion.

Andy took ruthless advantage of his distraction and cut deep into Unit-03's chest. A massive fireball engulfed the two Eva's as 03's S2 organ went supercritical, taking the infected Eva, it's pilot, and a nice chunk of Tokyo-3 with it into the upper atmosphere.

As the superheated air around the blast crater slowly cleared, Unit-04 was revealed, unmarred and sheathing its scythe.

Andy was gloating, in full Vulture Mode. "I'll take his fanfics, his movies, his TV, and the Unreal Tournament game. BUWAHAHAHA-" He glanced over his shoulder. "OH SHIT!"

Unit-04 launched itself into the sky, barely dodging a charging Unit-05.

"NOW I'm in trouble!"

Unit-05, having halted, extended it own wings and launched into a homicidal pursuit of Unit-04 through the blood-red and smoke-choked skies of Tokyo-3.

In the cockpit of Unit-04, Andy was sweating bullets. "Think. Stay calm." He dodged a swing from Unit-05 and went into a sharp dive. "Think. Think. Thinkthinkthinkthink-GUNS!"

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony suddenly began playing, starting at the 'Ode to Joy' section. An electronic hum signaled the arrival of a pair of Automatic Palette Pistols. Each gun was thrust into the Eva's hand by armatures hidden in the arm gauntlets. The hum was matched by 05.

The sky came alive with the sound of thunderous gunfire as both giants wove and dodged in John Woo style, trying desperately to kill one another and look damn cool while doing it.

Only a dozen seconds later, Unit-04 had taken several hits, and so had 05. Inside 04's entry plug, a single message glared suddenly, indicating that the specially designed missiles in the shoulders had locked onto their target and were armed and ready.

The shoulder guards of 04 snapped open and unleashed a salvo of homing missiles-in full Robotech style-at 05. The Hornet missiles impacted just as 05's rocket ports opened, exposing a dozen warheads. The resulting mid-air explosion was like a portal to hell being opened above the earth. 05 plummeted helplessly from the inferno towards the ground, its body torn and blackened, its wings twisted stumps. It slammed into several skyscrapers and as it hit the ground, its S2 core went supercritical, taking another large chunk of the city with it.

"BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! BUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! THE WINNER! HAHAHAHA... HAHA... HUH?" Andy looked around as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

Around the Eva, a huge force of JSSDF hovergunships, tanks, fighter, bombers, and armored transport had moved in, and in the distance he could see thirteen giant flying wings with horribly familiar white oblongs beneath them. The Evangelion calmly landed. Stored its pistols. Drew its scythe... and launched itself towards its enemies at a dead sprint, bearing down on them like five thousand tons of pure death, the pilot laughing at the top of his lungs. "BUHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"

The cockpit shuddered. The laughter went on. "WAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA!"

A woman's voice, faintly heard, almost pronounces Andy's name. "Andy?"

The entry plug shuddered more forcefully.

Not that Andy noticed. "WAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA!"

The female voice was louder. "Andy!"

And the whole world began to shake.

"AAAAAANDY!"

With a terrible shudder, the world ended.

In the darkness, the pilot spoke. "Huh? Wha?"

* * *

"You fell asleep again. CONCENTRATE!" John yelled.

The other people standing in the Entry Plug Test Deck tried to ignore the shouting American, his barbaric tongue and insult to their refined ears. By and large, the anonymous technicians didn't like the idea of America, and liked the idea of Americans even less. This trio of extreme examples of Americans was like poring acid into an open wound.

The good Doctor, trying to suffer the fools—the one in the Test Entry Plug, the one hitting the test entry plug with a large tool, and the one screaming into the communications microphone in his native tongue—was not in the least way pleased by how things were going. Her sarcasm was evident, magnified even, by Asuka's translation. "Jared, it was not necessary to use a sledgehammer to wake up Andy."

The young man grinned like an idiot at her. Impossibly, it didn't sound like whining. "But it was fun."

Both the Doctor and the Second Children sighed. "It's against regulations to—"

"But it was [fun]," Jared replied, bending the last word into a hypnotic assertion.

Ritsuko didn't even wait to hear the translation before backing down.

"Hoo-boy," John shook his head.

One of the technicians called for the test to end. Jared turned to watch, bemusedly, as a group of workers approached the Test Entry Plug. All wore green overalls and white gloves. Bright yellow rubber boots adorned their feet. Oddly, no-one wore a hair net or any kind of safety mask. The fact that Jared was hip-deep in LCL wearing his street clothes didn't seem to register with the Goon.

"You're a dead man!" Andy screamed as the door was opened. The technicians ran for cover as Andy ripped of the sensor wires attached all over his body and tripped out of the door and landed in the LCL. "WUAAA!"

Jared waited for Andy to stop thrashing around, stand, cough up some water, and assume what passed for a fighting stance before putting up his own fists. "Bring it on!"

* * *

The previous day:

The Americans were walking down yet another of NERV's seemingly endless corridors. Ritsuko guided them, with Kaji along to translate. The Americans looked closely at every detail that passed before their eyes, and pointed and exclaimed at anything shiny. For all that they were starry-eyed over the base, they didn't ask a lot of questions. Partially because they'd seen much of the base before in the anime, but mostly because John was still under the influence of the sedative given to him in the secure NERV hospital room, and Andy and Jared were having to essentially steer him along the corridor.

John sounded hopeful as he bounced between the other Americans like a belligerent ping-pong ball. "What's next? Fluid sample? Alien probes? Limb rearrangement? Mind control?"

"Bring it on!" Jared crowed, a Fist of Challenge raised. "Whatever you got, I can take it!"

"Hmm..." Andy eyed the ventilation grates.

"Don't be silly; it's just the psychiatric evaluation," said Ritsuko.

Before Kaji even began to translate, the Americans stopped dead in their tracks, almost causing Kaji to slam into them from behind. Puzzled, he stared at the trio. All three looked like they had just fought off the corpses of long-dead relatives using only a hair bush and a spork.

"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" Andy screamed.

"FUUUUBBBBAAAAAARRRRRREEEEDDDD!" John screamed.

"NINJA VANISH REVISED: TITANIC BREAKUP!" Jared screamed.

Andy dived for one of the ventilation grates, ripping the cover off and hurtling his body inside in the blink of an eye. Only once inside did he realize that the duct only went one direction.

Down.

"OOOH, SHHHIIIIIITTT!"

For eleven stories.

"... OUCH! OOF! YAAAAAAHHHhhhhhh..."

John mirrors Andy's example, but dives in the wrong direction, slamming skull-first into the nearest wall and knocking himself out cold.

Jared stood still. Perfectly still. Only his lips moved in a manic chant. "This isn't so bad, this isn't so bad, this isn't so bad..." Too still; he quit breathing and passed out.

"What's wrong with them?" Ritsuko asked the man stroking his chin's stubble thoughtfully.

"No clue. They didn't understand what you said. I think they panicked."

The doctor sighed and pulled a two-way radio from her belt. "Clean up on level 5 and 16. Bring first aid kits... and a mop."

* * *

If there is anything to say about interrogations, it is that they are long. It bears repeating, but that's unnecessary. Instead, consider that the Americans' collective interrogations occupied almost eight hours of the resident psychiatrist's time. Don't think Ritsuko doubles as NERV's chief psychiatrist? Name one other in the profession who is also working at NERV, I dare you.

Moving along, the very next thing that must be said about interrogations is that they are profoundly boring. 'I see God' boring. And thusly, very little of what transpired during these interrogations bears repeating.

* * *

Some time later, NERV underlings had separated the Americans and put each in their own padded room. The rooms were identical, containing only a simple plastic table and two plastic chairs. A small recorder hung from the ceiling, centered over the table for recording interviews. Misato, Ritsuko, and Kaji joined John in one room. Ritsuko with a clipboard, to ask questions. Misato to observe, and the bilingual Kaji to translate. Don't think Kaji's bilingual? Join the Navy and see if they like you speaking Japanese on an American or British boat.

Ritsuko began, translated through Kaji. "Ok, John, this is going to be painless."

"I hardly doubt that, I've had one of these before."

The doctor glanced at her clipboard. "How are you feeling?"

"I can see sounds and feel like I'm getting born in reverse as my mind spirals into madness. I'm just peachy, doctor."

Ritsuko made a note in the margin of her papers. 'Highly allergic to ST554, shows only psychotropic reactions to excessive dose.' Out loud, she answered John. "Okay, we'll keep that in mind, thanks."

Interrogations take time. Epic amounts of time. It was three hours of this insanity before the group was talking with Jared.

* * *

"Ok, Jared, this isn't going to be anything to worry about."

As any good American would, Jared piled on the sarcasm with a backhoe. "Oh, reeeaaally? Is that what you think, doctor? Just a waaalk in the park, eh? Just another step in a long, pointless road to nowhere?"

The assembled members of NERV simply stared.

Jared got up and began pacing in the confines of the tiny room. "Is this another litany in life, an adventure of petty mistakes, errors and missteps? You think is going to be another amusing little heart-to-heart chat where I tell you everything that went wrong with my life starting with my parents-which by the way, this did all start with, but I'm not going to talk about that... where was I?"

By this point, Kaji had stopped translating, resigned to wait until Jared wound down and said something relevant.

The American did eventually realize he was about to loose his audience, and cranked up the volume. "Oh yes, you want to TALK, to me, doctor? Disarm with a tender smile? I'm not telling anything! I will say nothing! You'll NEVER conquer ME!" He paused 'dramatically.' "I'm sorry… what was the question?"

Ritsuko shook herself, coming out of a slight daze. "How are you feeling?"

"I have a headache and I really, REALLY need a drink. Any other excessively stupid questions?"

"Yes, in fact. Any reason you're acting like an asshole?"

As if we even need to hear his answer for this one.

* * *

Andy was a little more receptive.

"How am I feeling?" he looked thoughtful, scratching a nonexistent beard. "In a word, trapped. I have the overwhelming urge to burst through the door and subdue the guards."

"Only I can have them open the door." Ritsuko pointed out.

"Then I subdue your first, then have them open the doors. Then there's the third possibility, but we probably don't want that."

Ritsuko left this route of questioning for later, making a note. She repressed the urge to snarl at his smug look, and pressed on. "Any particular reason you're asking like an asshole?"

"Is it just me, or is the local Bullshit level going through the roof." Andy directed a finger at the other side of the table. "I'm not piloting mecha right now. I want to pilot mecha right now. Do we have a problem or do we have a problem?"

Things simply went down hill from there.

* * *

"The little bunny you put in me is to blame, vermin. Send your armies of glowing rats away, away! I SAY, AWAY!" John screamed, cowering in the corner.

* * *

"We will kill you all. That is all I have to say." Jared folded his arms over his chest.

* * *

"What is the third possibility you mentioned?" Ritsuko asked Andy.

"I create a distraction, I dive under the table, under you, and through the vent grate behind you."

"And drop thirty stories straight down, most likely injuring yourself again."

"That would be a major difficulty in my plans, but I believe I could still drag myself to an unused portion of the Facility, healing and regaining my strength, and eventually becoming... an immortal super-assassin that will slowly eliminate your entire staff... One dead body at a time..."

The clipboard was growing fat with notes.

* * *

"Ok, something simple. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?"

John peered across the table at Ritsuko. "A carnivorous duck."

"That species doesn't exist," Ritsuko said.

John pointed frantically at an empty corner of the room. "Then what's that?"

* * *

At the same question, Andy replied with, "A Chipicabra, The Central American Devil. So I could terrorize helpless goat farmers leaving only a trail of fear and suspicious livestock."

* * *

Ritsuko knew, before even opening her mouth, that asking Jared this question would be a bad idea.

"A cat."

"And why?"

"Being a cat isn't so bad, let me demonstrate."

He began rubbing himself up against Misato's legs.

Misato growled. "Get him out of here, NOW!"

* * *

"Sexual preference?"

There are some questions mankind is not to know the answer of.

Then there are some answers you don't want to hear from a drugged John Genoni.

Ritsuko pondered both as she dutifully wrote his answer down. 'Cheesecake.'

* * *

"What is your favorite color?"

"Bright orange," Andy said with a sunny smile.

"And why?"

"Because it's very annoying."

"That's it?"

Still smiling, "It's not whether I win or lose, but how much I piss you off."

The doctor sighed, and muttered her under breath, "God help us." Before asking, "What would you do if you could pilot an Eva?"

Andy sat bolt upright in his chair, eyes wide, voice cracking with joy. "What wouldn't I do! … Let me rephrase that. I'd apply for a position as Angel of Death and open up a tanker full of Whoop-ass on the populace. Every one would bow to me!"

Ritsuko wrote "Normal American."

* * *

Asking the same question to John, "What would you do if you could pilot an Eva?"

John didn't speak. He didn't have to. He put his chops to better use by grinning.

Ritsuko bolted from the room hyperventilating. Kaji and Misato joined her a split-second later, all three white as ghosts.

"Don't ask the pervert that question." Misato pleaded.

"It's on the list," Ritsuko said, as if announcing her own impending execution.

* * *

And much later, she did ask him.

"What would you do if you could pilot an Eva?"

Jared didn't consider the question for a second. His reply was a lazy, rambling monotone. "Intimidate people, look cool, pick up chicks. Kick enough ass to keep the entire city on its feet for three weeks. That sort of thing."

* * *

The questions continued into the territory of the bizarre.

"Have you ever had the urge to kill someone?"

"In general or a particular person, such as the garbage man?" John answered.

"Do you have something against garbage men?"

"They make more money than I do."

"You're don't have a job. You don't have any records that we could find."

"In this world..."

Ritsuko rolled her eyes.

* * *

Jared had taken to rubbing a spot on the table. Ritsuko jotted down a note on the behavior, taking it for a nervous reaction.

"Have you ever had the urge to kill someone?" She asked.

"Daily or just in passing?"

As the translation begins, Ritsuko makes a quick note and interrupts. "Um... Moving along."

"No. This is an interesting question. Let us... discuss it." The grin that cut across his face brought to mind bear traps snapping shut on the legs of an unsuspecting hiker. "What about you doctor?" He slammed a foot onto the table, and mimed Phoenix Wright's famous pose. "Have you ever considered killing your manipulative lover?"

Ritsuko's mouth dropped open.

"What about your worthless mother, who resides within the memory of the computer systems you are tasked with maintaining?"

Ritsuko calmly set down her pencil. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about the TRUTH! Sound familiar, 'Doctor'?"

"Next question," Ritsuko insisted.

"Let's talk about those Evas for while, why don't we? What about the souls they steal?"

"Restrain him please," Ritsuko said icily.

"Restrain him…" Kaji realized that he was translating something Jared wasn't supposed to hear. In Japan, he said to the good doctor, "Oh, you mean me restrain him?"

Jared was in full salivating ranting mode by now. "You're just afraid of the reality you've created! Gods, woman, what about morals? What about bathing suits? What about cheese?"

Fanning the flames with gale force winds and jet fuel, Kaji smirked. "What about that smelly stuff?"

Jared slapped the table with his free hand, and pointed accusingly at the doctor again. "Blasphemer! You're just afraid of the truth, you can't handle the truth!" He sat, hands in his lap, thoughtful look on his face. When he spoke, his voice was calm, almost bored. "Oh, that last one's out of a movie. Hmm. What's the next question?"

Kaji and Misato exchanged looks. Ritsuko made a note: Keep under observation 24/7.

* * *

"Have you ever had the urge to kill someone?"

Andy shrugged. "Who doesn't? Well, only in public places, really. Besides, it's not like my boss is trying to end the world or anything." He sits back, arms folded over his chest smugly.

Kaji finishes translating, then adds his own jab. "What are these guys talking about?"

"Obviously, they're snowing us."

"Ah."

* * *

The day wore on, and so did the questions and forms, until at last all parties concerned could say that nothing had been accomplished.

"Ok, this is the last question."

Calmly, John countered. "It's never the 'last question,' doctor. As soon as you ask this question there will be a million more, of the likes of, 'that wasn't so bad, now was it?' and 'Do you want fries with that?' Not to forget, 'are the drugs wearing off yet?'"

"Are the drugs wearing off yet?"

Still calm, "No. And tell that Cabbit on your shoulder to stop staring at me or I'll rip its ears off and shove them up its ass."

"… I see."

"No, you don't, because you are not under the influence. If you did see, you'd be hauled away to the funny farm. Now, was that your question or did you have something else in mind?"

"Do you have any wild conspiracy theories to throw at us?" Ritsuko asked.

"Several, but let me offer facts instead of theories. Would you prefer business, pleasure, or personal?"

"Let's go with business."

"Very well; pilots, personnel, projects, or facilities?"

"Facilities, if you don't mind."

"You have 22 layers of armor, though that is hardly enough for some of the later Angels you'll be facing, made of mainly Titanium. This facility is at the floor of the GeoFront, but it really is the Black Moon, The Egg at the center of the world. You can launch the Evas anywhere in the Geofront or up in Tokyo-3. You have weapons hidden in buildings up there, 'Armaments Buildings' you call them. Also defenses, but they never work. This facility goes down several dozen levels into what is referred to as 'Terminal Dogma' where... well I'll just say that you are none too fond of marshmallows... The floor is soaked with LCL, a blood tasting, breathable liquid, its hallways lead to other rooms, a mass graveyard and also a storage facility to one of your 'projects.' But that's a different question and you promised only one. Good day to you all and don't worry, those dinosaurs will leave after a while."

Once finished, he stood before the door as if expecting it to open by itself.

Misato and Kaji looked at Ritsuko, who shrugged.

* * *

"One last question and this session is over."

"Aaaaaawwwww. Kill joy," Jared whined.

Misato interrupted. "Anything else you would like to add?"

Ritsuko gestured for Jared to go ahead.

In a low, gravely voice, "I am the Alpha and the Omega. You will bow before me."

* * *

"Okay, Andy this is the last question."

"Ok, Shoot."

"Do you have anything to add?"

"It smells in here. You should switch to a different antiperspirant. That is all."

Kaji was forced to restrain the doctor.

* * *

As a rule, the Americans were not fans of holding cells, even ones as clean, comfortable, and well-appointed as the room the Americans were currently locked in. Andy looked sullenly at the walls as if choosing not to recall a painful memory. Jared searches every seam of the room with casual ease, then sits in the middle of the floor, seiza style. Well, for about half a minute. Then he rearranged his feet into a pose that doesn't double as a method of torture. John began a tense argument with the walls... and lost.

Some time later, food arrives. MRE-type stuff that results in...

"What the fuck is this stuff? I can't read Japanese!" Jared exclaimed.

Andy made a show of tasting the plastic wrapper. "I think it might be edible."

John picked up his packet with some long metal tongs. "It's either Japanese food or toxic waste. Neither can harm you and both are glowing right now."

Jared looked at John. "I... won't ask." He tore open one of the packets, gagged after a taste, then swallowed, then made another face. "When are we getting our test results back?"

"We don't. It's for their records," John answered.

Andy bit into the food stuff, chewing on the wrapper and all.

Jared whipped out a bottle of hot sauce to season the food. Unnoticed by the trio, a stray drop landed on the floor and began to emit a white smoke as the 'sauce' ate a small crater into the metal floor. "Damn, and that was some of my best stuff!"

Andy, down to a single bite of his meal, covertly pulled out a voodoo doll, whispering to himself, "Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the office of the Commander of NERV, the… well, the Commander of NERV sat behind his massive steel desk. Gendo Ikari. He was bean-pole thin, with limbs that filled out his suit like pipe cleaners. He glared at the world through cold brown eyes that picked apart everything they lay upon like merciless scavengers skulking over the cold wastelands of life, low-browed and filthy. He wore a pair of white gloves, currently positioned to hide his mouth from the view of his lone visitor, fingers laced together, patiently waiting for the very stressed-out doctor to wind down.

"He was like a giant ant!" Ritsuko exclaimed, gesturing to a report binder an inch thick.

"I'm sure your evaluation may be slightly colored by their... excitability." Gendo intoned, aiming for a gentle but firm tone of voice. He achieved a kind of dry, dismissive malice usually reserved for an executioner taunting the executionee.

Nonplussed, the frazzled doctor pressed on. "You weren't in there, Gendo! They can't be human!"

Gendo's calm was imperturbable. "Urk. Dr. Akagi, please let go of my collar."

She did so, hands locked in a 'claw to death' position even as she forced them to her sides. Gendo returned to his seat, and as he reached to the something at the edge of his desk, a carafe of hot water and a cup appeared. He efficiently poured the water, and offered the resulting cup of brewing tea to the doctor.

Taking the tea, "They're maniacs. If they can fight as well as they talk in circles, we're saved."

Mysteriously, he replied, "The actions of Man do not save, only destroy."

Sipping the tea, "Do you always talk in riddles?"

Gendo made a dismissive hand movement. "Only in the afternoons. What about their possible use as disposable resources?"

"Resources?" The doctor repeated, as if he had suggested making sausage out of rocks and plastic explosive. She then shook her head and settled for another sip of tea.

"Can they survive piloting Evas?"

Cue spit-take. "What? They barely survived the tests!"

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Don't fuck with me on this Gendo, if you put them in Evas, no force on earth could stop them... Except for cheese, Chipicabras or illegal drugs."

Gendo stared, an eyebrow pressed up in surprise, "Oh?"

Ritsuko directed a chastised look to her tea. "Uh, never mind."

Gendo was musing to himself. "But… we only have a few Chipicabras left."

"..." The doctor intelligently stated.

"Did I say that out loud?"

Ritsuko nodded once, slowly.

"Ah… heh." The glare and mouth-guarding posture returned. "Irrelevant. Forget what I just said."

With another sip of her tea, "Agreed. I'll forget everything you've said."

* * *

Later that night, with the pilots safely pushed aside—er, taken care of—for the night, the Americans have been whisked off of the base proper, set up in a company hotel room under lock, key, heavy weapons, dozens of armed guards, and military backup.

Inside the hotel room, people infinitely more dangerous are passing the time.

"Have any threes?" John asked.

"Go fish." Jared replied.

Andy was at the window, peeking through the blinds. "They're still out there."

Jared groaned. "And they were there five minutes ago. And they'll still be there when you look again in another five minutes."

"Unless another one floats through the wall." John remarked.

Jared shifted his gaze from one Goon to the other. "Riiiight."

"I'm just saying this security is an honor." Andy said with a proud smile.

"What?" John asked the bathroom door.

"Well, we must have done well in the tests if we rated for the best of the faceless minions. Who knows, someday well may well rate Hovergunships, armored divisions, and maybe, just maybe, an N2 bomber on stand-by to make sure we NEVER escape and wreak havoc."

The thin Goon scoffed. "Never happen. Even we aren't that good."

A burst of lightening suddenly illuminated the room and it's drab decorations. The Goons recoiled in horror at the décor, then quickly recovered.

"Rain tonight." John informed the television.

"Do you hear something?" Andy asked.

"Kind of a ghostly shrieking noise followed by a series of loud clicks?"

"No, just a constant humming, almost an engine whine type sound… Do you… do you really hear a ghostly shrieking noise and clicks and all that?"

Quickly, "No. No, of course not. High-pitched humming, right?"

"Yeah, almost like a whine."

"I've heard it before..." John said to the deck of un-drawn cards. "A high-pitched whine at this altitude could only mean..."

Andy ripped open the shutters and excitedly waved at the pilots of the ten Hovergunships floating outside. One could barely make out the pilots nervously waving back. The ships backed away a few dozen yards.

Andy closed the blinds. "Never happen huh?"

"Coincidence." Jared insisted. "It must be a coincidence. I know we aren't that good."

"Then again we did leak all that information about NERV and SEELE and stuff that may have never happened yet. After all, we don't even know what episode we're in." John insisted.

Episode 12, more or less. Though the Angel that was just dispatched split into two, and originally took days of careful training on the part of the pilots and… Hell, does continuity even count now?

"Hush, you." Jared said quietly.

"Just forget about the damn episode number!" Andy shouted.

"Just because you forgot..." John said.

I did not forget!

"I did not forget!" Andy mirrored the narrator's assertion. "I just wasn't paying attention."

"The red-haired goddess is here, so we're past the sixth Angel, that's episode 8."

John was somewhat preoccupied with watching the unicorn in the bathroom play cards with the armed badger and the bright yellow elk. "Unit-01 was still on Umbilical Cable so we're not at the 14th Angel, that's episode 19."

Jared followed John's look with mild curiosity. "That's still a big spread, what did the angel look like?"

Andy thought back, to when he was running down the street, trying to figure out what he could swipe from the abandoned stores. "It was big?"

John's mind was wracked by drug-induced thoughts. A stream of conscious ideas that went something like this: Goat fish Venetian blinds kangaroos I was running for my life at the time cards Isaac Newton George Burns manhole cover. But enough of that. "It was big?"

Jared thought back, and realized he was trying to figure out how to get Asuka out of her Eva. "It was big?"

"Well that's... pathetic." He glared at the bathroom again. "Quit drinking out of the toilet you damn Zebra!"

Andy whispered to Jared. "How long did they say he'd be like this?"

Jared, who had none of the knowledge Andy was covertly asking for, conjured up some words. "Rest of the night."

Andy, thinking creatively, as creative writers are wont, "Can't we tie him up or something?"

"Nah, he's harmless. And we should be recording this for..."

"Posterity?"

"I was thinking blackmail, but whatever works."

"Hey, there are video games on this TV!" John discovered.

And there was much rejoicing.

* * *

The next morning found the Goons rounded by military troops and transported in 'secret' to NERV, arriving, after several hours of travel and checkpoints, at a briefing room next to the test plug area.

Ritsuko paced her line in front of the pilots, a stern but weathered look on her face. The look of someone who was about to engage in a pointless and dangerous activity for no apparent gain. The technicians standing by were not rubbernecking, or whispering amongst themselves. They were, however, wondering if the procedure unfolding before them was just a bizarre dream. After all, in what reality did three Americans without knowledge of the local language appear from basically nowhere and suddenly qualify to be Eva pilots?

Dear reader, please don't answer that.

The Americans were certainly through the looking glass. Waking up in the morning, all three had forgotten where they were.

Flashback time!

* * *

Earlier that morning.

A hand rose, claw-like, to the couch cushions. Desperate, grasping, it found purchase and hauled skyward the lanky form of Jared. He yawned, made a face at the smell of his own breath, and rubbed his chin.

Then his eyes flew wide open. "No stubble?" He breathed. "Damn pranksters. I have half a mind to-" Jared's nearly intelligible morning monologue died out as his eyes adjusted to the sight of the Tokyo-3 skyline cutting sharp shadows in the light of the sun. "This is... just like a story idea I had. That alphabet soup one. What was the title again?"

A lump of something groaned from the floor. While the groaning continued, Jared walked into the kichenette of the hotel room, and began brewing some coffee by reflex. While the water heated, he removed the duct tape holding John to the drapes, dropping the younger Goon on his head.

"Wake up, dude. We're dreaming."

"Fantastic," John slurred out. "You know, I had the weirdest dream last..." John's eyes caught the sight of the city at dawn. His hands were around Jared's throat. "What did you do?"

"I..." Choking gasp. "... started the coffee."

John dropped his prey and made for the kichenette. "Oooh, coffee."

A good ten minutes later saw Andy awake (in the loosest sense of the word), and propped up to the vertical in a chair, John and Jared flanking him and each on their fourth cup.

"You know, I've got this great idea for a fanfic." John said.

"Do tell," said Jared.

"An American kid goes to college in Japan. Upon arriving, he's got to go a weird series of test to actually start classes. I'm talking some serious Hatori Hanzo shit. Write a fifty million word essay, win a tug-of-rope game using his teeth, deliver the lungs of a green dragon to the admissions officers, that kind of thing."

"You know, that actually sounds like an interesting story."

"But then, he actually gets to go to classes for a week, and then aliens attack, and the school's swimming pool opens up to reveal a giant robot."

"Naturally." Jared nodded.

"And all the tests were to see if he's got the right stuff to pilot it."

"Interesting, but you said fanfic."

"Remember 'Dual'?"

"Yeah, but there were parallel universes there."

"I could work it in."

"No doubt. What do you think Andy?"

"Don't use the .30-cal, the .308 has better penetration." A snore followed.

Wait, what was the point of that?

* * *

Back to the present, Ritsuko glared at each of the Goons as she passed them. Andy seemed not to notice, Jared preened and smiled suggestively, and John offered a sympathetic look.

Misato entered, enduring a brief scolding from Ritsuko, and stood to one side. The Goons watched in curiosity as Ritsuko began an obviously rehearsed speech. To their surprise, Misato was translating. "We're basically just going to see if you can interface with the Evas using our test system."

To their credit, the American's didn't snicker when she stumbled over several words. John did interrupt to ask, "Ryoji and Asuka busy?"

"Kaji claimed he had other things to do. Asuka will be assisting during the test and had to prepare."

"I'm surprised the doctor doesn't speak a little Awesome herself." Jared mused.

"Doctor Akagi is too..." Misato paused to search for the word.

"Preoccupied," John said.

"We're very difficult to deal with," Andy put in.

"Yes," Misato agreed.

The Goons actually looked abashed.

"If we're done?" Ritsuko asked in Japanese.

"Sorry," said Misato.

"We shooting anything today?" Jared asked.

After the translation, Ritsuko answered. "Gods, I hope not."

Ritsuko walked off.

"Now we do the plugs suits, right?" Andy prompted.

John groaned. "I'm not up for this."

To Ritsuko's departing posterior, Jared shouted, "Was that a yes or a no?"

* * *

"It's just like in the anime." Andy's voice echoed through the dark green locker room next to the synchronization test cage.

Then Jared clocked him upside the head with the towel hamper. "Of course it's like the anime. We're in the anime!"

"I heard you the first time!" Andy replied diplomatically, shoving Jared into John, who was sitting on the room's lone bench.

"Shut up!" John shouted from the floor.

"Never!" Jared cried as John used him for a springboard to attack Andy. The plan didn't work out quite as intended, as he wasn't in as good a shape as he thought he was, and instead of landing on Andy, he crashed into him like a linebacker.

Jared flipped to his feet and kicked the brawling Goons apart.

Moments later, Shinji walked in, and immediately had to duck a wild punch. The Goons froze upon seeing him.

John immediately said, "The first one to start humming anything by Beethoven gets kicked in the nuts."

Jared and Andy put on their thinking faces for several tense seconds. One of them, chosen as the spokesman, said, "Fair enough."

Like an ailurophobe feeding a lion for the first time, Shinji offered the trio a small folded note. John took it carefully, palming Shinji a dollar bill. "Thanks, Ace."

And with that, Shinji was gone.

Idly, Jared began, "You know, I once wrote a story where—"

And he didn't continue, because he was buried under John and Andy and their battle cry. "DIE HELLSPAWN!"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, in the simulated synchronization testing area, Misato was tapping her foot rapidly, close to fuming. "What's taking them so long?"

"Nervous?" Ritsuko suggested, then considered. "Nah."

The door leading to the locker rooms opened behind the Major. "Shinji said they took the note. Maybe they misunderstood?"

"When do we get introductory music?" Jared mused in English, stepping through the door. Each Goon wears a white plug suit with the English words 'TEST UNIT' on most of the parts.

Misato turned around. "Here they are... what the?" She took in the black eyes, the limps, the numerous cuts, Jared's bloody nose, and the gentle way John is holding the fingers of his left hand, and snorted. In English, "Mucha first. Into the plug."

The Goons shuffled to the staging platform, neither noticing nor caring that the many techs keep a good distance from them and move around like herding large animals.

In the control room, Asuka was also in her plug suit with heavy overalls on top of it. She watched the Goons attempt to follow the tech's hand gestures. She had been tasked with the unfortunate duty of giving the Goons verbal direction while Misato directed the procedure and Ritsuko monitored the instrumentation and data recording systems. Her refined grasp of English was a chore in so many, many ways.

"Good thing they're behind armored glass," she muttered to herself.

Outside, Jared glanced at the control room, eyes picking out the Second Children easily. "She's behind armored glass. A minor obstacle."

John grabbed him by the arm. "Not this again, we need to talk."

"Hm?" Jared looks hopefully in the direction of the control room.

"About last night…" John began.

The two remained on the prep deck with most of the technicians while Andy was gingerly stuffed into the plug like a… well, like an oversized American into a space designed to accommodate a small Japanese kid.

"That looks painful," Jared commented. The techs didn't literally have to use crowbars to get Andy into the plug, but space inside was at an uncomfortable premium.

"Dude, focus. What happened last night?"

"We played video games, scared NERV's security forces… duct-taped you to some drapes…"

"Was I that out of control?"

"No. It was just funny."

John frowned. "What else happened?"

"Uh… we had dinner, sat in our cells for a while."

"Hm… I remember the cells. A bit. What was dinner?"

"Instant noodles. They tried to make me eat," Jared face turned white as he was forced to recall a great horror. "Soba noodles."

John scratched his chin in thought. "I've always wondered; what do you have against soba noodles?"

"They're soba noodles."

"No, I mean texture, flavor…"

"Just soba."

"The name?"

"No. The essence of soba is deeply offensive to me."

"How does that work?"

"All foods have their own essence. Their own… soul."

"And the soul of soba is offensive to you?"

"Like a maggot-filled puss sack."

"… And yet you ordered and ate it for dinner last night."

Offended, "I did no such thing!"

John whipped out a slip of paper. "I have a signed list of our dinner requests here."

"Let me see!" The two peered at the list. In Jared's handwriting was a lengthy and inventive list of threats, demanding the highest quality of soba noodle in his dish, and promising the end of several family bloodlines should his expectations not be met. "This is one sick puppy we're dealing with, Genoni." Jared mused after a minute.

"This is you we're dealing with! … I'm dealing with!"

"He is a clever foe," Jared said as if consoling his friend.

"Well if he would just make up his mind about some things…"

Jared sighed theatrically. Several techs held up signs grading the measure of his acting like Olympic judges; mostly fives and sixes. "Look, John, I'm not saying I'm the world's best leader—"

"You said exactly that over coffee this morning."

"Did I suggest we erect a monument to my greatness?"

"Just before we left the hotel."

"Did I attempt to decree what's good and not good in the world of foreign foodstuffs?"

"Moments ago."

"Did I try vainly to defend my position with sneaky politician-like tactics, rudely attacking your behavior and fashion sense and accusing you of vague acts which you could not conclusively prove were concocted in my own head?"

"Not yet, but hope springs eternal."

"Thanks."

"Okay." John put away the receipt. "What about breakfast?"

"What about breakfast?"

"You ordered the whole damn menu!"

"We're in Japan. I'm taking in the culture."

"Sure; if you replace 'culture' with 'food' and 'taking in' with 'gorging shamelessly on'."

"You say potato…"

John plowed ahead. "Who do you think is going to pay for all that food? The bill came to two hundred thousand!"

"Those are yens, dude. That's like, thirty dollar US."

"Do you have thirty dollars?"

"No, but Andy owes me."

"Does Andy have thirty dollars?"

"No, I rifled through his pockets after we changed."

John didn't let the comment pass. "And how are you going to get money out of your bank?"

Jared stared at his friend as if fearing for his sanity. Then he replied, very slowly, as if speaking to a frightened jackelope, "From the bank."

John had the look of a man who had just successfully drugged his date. "And your bank exists in the Evangelion universe?"

"... You present an intriguing point, Genoni."

Alarms began blaring.

John sighed. "Can't leave him alone…"

Jared sighed as well. "… for five minutes."

Curious phrases began to be heard, oddly enough in English.

"We've lost nerve contact with the pilot!"

"Generating random signals in the input matrix!"

"The Quake VII engine is slowing down!"

Jared and John quickly identified the ID Software-loving technician and dog-piled on top of him, large pieces of lumber in hand.

From within the control room, Ritsuko and Misato presented a veneer of entirely false calm while Asuka looked on with relish. "Great, he's going psycho."

Jared's head snapped around as if pulled by wires, his eyes meeting hers. "And I suppose, Sohryu, that you have a perfect service record?"

Asuka blinked at the Goon through the inch thick security glass, briefly debating whether to boggle at the fact he had heard her at all, or wonder if she'd just spoken in English by mistake. She decided to press on with a flippant wave instead, aiming to diffuse further commentary from the idiot-pervert. "Of course."

"In bed?" Jared asked with a crooked 'I could care less what the world thinks of my loose morals; I'm going to enjoy this' smile.

Asuka's adrenaline began pumping, preparing for the assault. Ripping the door open, her battle cry echoed through the test area. "RAAAAAGGHH!"

"Yipe!" Jared intelligently observed, running for his life.

"Stop them!" Misato ordered the technicians.

Jared made a circuit of the room, Asuka in hot persuit. Somewhere along the way, he picked up a sledgehammer. Leaping clear of Asuka's grasping hands, desperately seeking the American's esophagus, he landed in the LCL pool surrounding the test plug.

He began to approach the test plug. "Hope this works..."

John wandered into the control room. "This is cool. Say, do we have any popcorn around here?"

Misato translated the question on autopilot. Maya replied, and Misato translated the answer. "Lower left cabinet."

Meanwhile, Jared was discovering that the LCL pool was only two feet deep, and made good time towards the test plug itself. Closing in on the cylindrical structure, he used the sledgehammer handle to probe for holes in the bottom of the pool.

By then, Misato was trying to herd Genoni out of the control room, while the doctor frantically tried to get a response from the Goon locked in the test plug.

"ANDY!"

Jared started hitting the test plug with the sledgehammer, proving there was still such a thing as a bad plan. "Wake up! Andy, before you kill us all!"

"Ignore him!" Misato directed the confused technicians. "Doctor?"

"He's going into V-fib. I need a defibrillator prepped and a med team to the deck."

John gave up his search for popcorn and watched the drama unfold in front of him with mild disinterest.

Jared had broke into song. "I've been working on the raaaaaiiiilrooooaaaad, all the live-long daaaaaaaay!"

Misato spoke into the P.A. system. "Jared?"

The Goon paused, looking around as if he'd just heard the voice of God. "Yeah?"

"You're badly off-key."

"Misato," Ritsuko scolded. "You didn't really just-"

Misato put up a hand to silence her friend. "Don't say it."

"Uh, a little help here?" Jared called.

One of the technicians finally slaps his palm over a large button that is labeled 'HATCH EMERGENCY OPEN' in English. Perversely, it causes the plug to eject, and the main door to open. Jared has to stop the sledgehammer mid-swing to avoid pulping Andy's brain.

"Huh? Wha?" The large Goon inside said, confused.

Ritsuko stared. "Wait a minute, did he just tear the monitoring systems out of his plug suit?"

John ignored the babbling Japanese and walked out in the test deck to glare at Andy. "You fell asleep! You need to concentrate!"

"How?" Andy asked, yawning.

Jared attempted to come to the aid of his friend. "You... well, you... uh... you simply... um, concentrate?"

"How?"

John rubbed his at temple; today's headache was working up to 'extremely persistent.'

Misato's voice, commanding, boomed over the P.A. system again. "Jared, it was not necessary to use sledgehammer to wake up Andy."

"But, um, God, sir-er, ma'am, it was fun." The Goon replied.

"It is against regulations to-"

"It was fun."

The woman's voice was suddenly meek. "Okay, okay."

John sighed, while Andy looked around, brain lurching into gear, his eyes locking onto the sledge. "You're a dead man!"

In reply, Jared took up a Bruce Lee-esque martial arts stance. "Bring it on!"

Andy tried to leap out of the plug, almost loosing his arms and legs to the door frame in the process. Jared helped him out, then the two began fighting.

Asuka looked on, her voice echoing as the terrible reality of the situation dawned on her. "We'll have to kill them." She blinked. "Actually, that's not so bad..."

* * *

Indeed, as the afternoon wore on, many began to pray for the Goons deaths. And as they say 'first comes the prayin', then comes the payin'.' Well, at least we like to think people say that. So it's all in our heads. Like this story.

Where were we?

Oh yes... death.

After the test were done, Misato rounded up the Goons in the middle of the test deck. All three were swaying on their feet, massive bags under their eyes. A chorus of yawns rolled from one end of the line of Americans to the other regularly, as do waves on the ocean.

"Okay, guys. We... Mucha! Wake up!"

"Um, God, sir?" Jared said, eyes closed. "Could we like, get some Dew?"

"What?"

"Refreshment," John said.

Misato did a double take. "I'm sorry, did you say 'virgin blood'?"

"No. And what a silly mistake to make." Andy said, then snored loudly.

Misato sighed, and threw her hands up in the air. "Someone get them some drinks!"

Moments later, the Goons did the Dew, and were thusly refreshed.

"Okay, guys." Misato eyed them critically. "Now for the-" Misato shuddered, then shook herself and continued as if nothing happened. "-real thing. The tests have shown you are compatible with piloting Evangelions, and despite Ritsuko's and my own objections, it's time for the real thing.

John tapped his fingertips together. "Excccellent!"

"So which one are we piloting?" Jared asked.

"It's surprising they would have a unit prepped this quickly," Andy mused.

John shrugged. "We've dragged this out long enough, I think. It's time to embarrass the Japanese. Again. And in response to your question, Jared, judging by the way their restraining Asuka to prevent a massacre, I'd say Unit 02."

The quarter-breed screamed in German. "OVER YOUR DEAD BODIES, FREAKS!"

John continued as if he hadn't heard. "Hmm... that could be an answer to both of your questions, but anyway..."

"I think we have been insulted." Andy said, frowning.

"I think we have been threatened." Jared said, speculative.

"I think... I'm going first." John said, smiling.

"Are NOT!" Andy screamed.

"Am TOO!" John replied in kind.

Jared dashed into the space between the two... were sane men fear to tread. "There is only one way to settle this!" He held up a clenched fist, and both of the other Goons punched him in the head. Jared rose to his feet slowly, hands in warding positions. "Not that way!" The fist went up again. "Paper, rock-"

Andy tackles Jared this time. John dashes for the exit.

"Um..." Ritsuko said, eying the door closing behind John and the struggling Goons on the deck. "Misato, are they going to be like this all day?"

Misato ran a hand through her purple hair. "I hope not."

On the deck, Jared finally quit trying to explain his plan to Andy and just kicked the Goon across the room, then stood and dusted himself off as if nothing had happened. "Hey, where's—that son of a bitch!"

Andy flipped to his feet. "That son of a bitch!"

"I already said that!" Jared shouted, dashing for the exit John had left through. The pair continued yelling and taking swings at each other, audible even in the hallway outside of the test area.

Maya tugged at Ritsuko's sleeve to get the doctor's attention. "Um... senpai? That's not the way to cage number three. Who's going to retrieve them?"

"A sniper team, if I had my way," Ritsuko grumbled under her breath. Then, barked to the technicians, "Get security to round up those idiots and deliver them to cage three."

* * *

An hour later, the Goons were assembled in cage three, John getting into an actual Eva plug. Jared and Andy, now in the observation room, were vibrating with joy. Literally. It was really creeping out the guards assigned to them.

Jared had wrestled control of the room's intercom from Andy, and was playing for the role of emotional support.

Inside the plug, John appeared to sniff the air a bit, and pronounced, "Eeeeewww, it smells like Asuka in here."

Over the intercom, Asuka's scream of rage rang out. "YOU DIE FIRST!"

Jared made good use of the intercom before him as well. "Which part of Asuka?"

"YOU DIE SECOND!"

John choose to make faces at everybody as the plug was screwed in. "Neener, neener, neeener."

"YOU CAN'T STAY IN THERE FOREVER!" Andy declared.

John smirked. "Oh, we'll see..."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Ritsuko called for John to leave the plug.

"Hey, this is more relaxing than the infamous laz-e-boy. Let me have few more minutes."

"We really have other things we need to finish today, John." Misato insisted.

Jared's voice crackled over the intercom. "He gets five minutes, then I go in with the Jaws of Life."

Andy's voice followed suit. "I'll help."

Ritsuko sighed and took a drink from her large coffee mug with the cat face on it.

* * *

Another twenty minutes passed before Ritsuko called to Genoni. Mostly because of the gopher incident, but we're not going into that.

"Time to get out John."

"It's full of stars..."

Jared, now standing behind Ritsuko and decked out in a mountain of military gear over his test unit plug suit, looked ready to kill. Fittingly, he shouted, "KILL HIM!" Even as John finished.

Andy, the only person standing near Jared, seemed to glow with energy, the air around charged. "HE DIES NOW, I GET THE ROBOT!"

And with that, the two turned their murderous gazes on one another.

Ritsuko finally threw her hands into the air. "Guards; get them out of here, now!"

"I can hear you breathing..." John said from within the plug.

"As for you..." Ritsuko gestured to the technicians. "Increase LCL pressure as far as it will go."

"But... that'll crush him!" Aoba protested.

"Do. It."

John immediately began pounding on the door. "I'm leaving! I'm leaving!"

"My turn!" Jared announced with glee, his military weapons missing.

"I think not, mortal!"

Ritsuko resorted to screaming this time. "Jared, into the plug! Put that sword down! Andy, enough with the ax!"

* * *

Jared's turn inside the entry plug left Andy in straightjackets, chains, and a muzzle. A herd of armed guards swarmed around him, while John napped in a spare chair.

Asuka showed some restraint only because she didn't want to be restrained like Andy.

Cheerily, Jared examined his surroundings. "Hmm… now, I could make crude sexual references about being in Asuka's mom—"

"DIE!"

"-Or I could try to pilot this bad boy… girl… robot… whatever."

Ritsuko sighed. "Just concentrate, please."

"Okay…" He looked around, bored as the minutes dragged by like mice dying of cancer along the road to mecca. Jared ignored the incomprehensible analogy and began to sing. "Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow…"

* * *

After Jared's tests wrapped up, Andy was forced into the plug with great enthusiasm. Enthusiasm on Andy's part, and force provided by the other Goons and several crowbars. The well over six foot tall American was unhappy with the size of the plug, but almost squealing with joy at finally taking the helm.

Twenty minutes later…

"It's full of stars," Andy said, staring at the plug walls.

"That's the screen saver, Mucha. Wiggle your fingers," Ritsuko directed in surprisingly good English.

Andy did so, and was rewarded with a view of the cage's walls. "Boooring!" Andy declared.

Technicians began screaming. "Sir! Unit-02 is moving!"

"Cut the power!" Misato commanded.

Blast cable separation systems activated.

"Unit-02 is on battery power!"

"Evangelion has reached the fourth catapult!"

"Catapult activated!"

"Make a note," Ritsuko directed Maya, "Remove that damn manual launch button."

"On screen!" Misato shouted.

The main holographic display changed to show a panoramic view of Tokyo-3. A moving speck to the right indicated Unit-02 stepping out of the release elevator. Another camera was sent to the display, now framing Unit-02 in sharp relief as it made a bee-line for one of the tallest buildings in the city.

"Andy! Andy, respond!" Misato shouted desperately.

"Hold on a sec, Major." Andy said, grunting. Unit-02 jumped onto the side of the building and began climbing rapidly.

"The hell…" Misato stared.

On the screen, Unit-02 reached the top of the building, and began swatting at the hovercraft that had been deployed the instant he'd punched the manual launch button.

"GOD DAMN HIM!" Jared howled.

"Jealous he thought of the King Kong routine first?" Jibed John.

"Feh," Jared commented eloquently.

Suddenly, John Posed Dramatically, speaking out of sync with his lip movements. "Wait, I have an idea. Blow out the support bolts on the building!"

Jared also began speaking without moving his lips properly, now bringing to mind badly dubbed foreign action movies. "That will only enrage the monster! Only my Fists of Fury can subdue the Beast!"

"I'M KING OF THE WORLD!" Andy's voice rang out over the intercom.

"Knock him out!" Ritsuko yelled, through with this bullshit. "Use the defibrillator!"

Unit-02 began convulsing on the screen. Andy's voice a pleasant, musical accompaniment. "AAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" Okay, maybe not so musical.

The Evangelion let go of the building and plummeted to the streets below.

"Is he dead?" John asked in a casual tone, words matching his mouth now.

"No," Misato answered.

"Hit him again!" Jared crowed.

* * *

Later that day, in a massive office deep within NERV, Ritsuko had delivered her report to the Commander of NERV and was awaiting his reaction.

Gendo Ikari, a slim man with a short beard and an ill-fitting suit. Wire-framed glasses caught glare like a black hole, and spindly fingers inside obscenely white gloves had been laced together in front of his mouth, unmoving as if they had been cast in stone. His vision had not done any more than notice the existence of her report. He waited patiently until she finished her verbally summary of the day's events, then spoke.

With his gloves hiding his mouth, there may have been a high-quality recording played in his steed. "I see there were some... difficulties during the tests. Glad to see it was nothing you couldn't handle."

"Ah, right." The doctor said sheepishly, wishing she didn't look at all frazzled. But then, it had been a frazzling day.

"And this data is satisfactory."

"I don't know how the hell they did it and they'll probably kill each other if we give them all Evas, but they're otherwise good pilot material."

Gendo's voice held just a hint of disdain. "And they are Americans..."

"This was your idea, sir." Ritsuko sniped back.

"Very well. Have Katsuragi take care of their IDs and such."

Ritsuko wisely refrained from rolling her eyes. The Major would probably just pull some surveillance tape. "Yes, sir."

End Chapter 2

* * *

**A note from the author:** Been crazy in my corner of the world, but here's another chapter. Countless (at this point, at least) more coming, so stay tuned!

You'll notice that once again we have no major appearance by either Shinji or Rei, but rest assured, the remainder of the cast will play a major part in the coming chapters, from the lowest technician, the commander of NERV himself.

Not that we're stealing any 'screen time' from the hot chicks, of course.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** If you think we can't do worse than the last two chapters... oh do we have a long way to fall... and you a lot to learn. The masterpiece that is Neon Genesis Evangelion was created by Gainix, and shared with us unworthy Americans through ADV Films. Please keep in mind that we are in no way creative. Everything in here is stolen from other sources. Also, keep in mind that if you've read this far, statistics say you're sucked in forever. Well, we think that's a load of phoey, but you know how it is.

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 3: Who was that Masked Man? / Unfamiliar Everything

* * *

The hotel room was hardly the best Tokyo-3 had to offer, but if the occupants were asked if it was up to their standards, they would have stated that a lack of dead hooker hidden in the mattress was a big plus. Then they would ignore the weird stares and calls to the local police station, instead turning their attention to the vista of Tokyo-3's beautifully functional concrete buildings.

The city was a fortress, really. A trained eye could trace the notations on the buildings that listed the building's location in an arbitrary grid and directions to the nearest shelter. Buildings which retracted in the event of an Angel attack had large structures running up the sides to be gripped by the machinery below ground. Warnings a meter wide and a dozen stories tall were splattered across every building.

None of the three in this particular hotel room could read any of that, of course. They did spend almost forty minutes reveling in the fact that as a 'western' hotel, the information cards left in the room were printed in no less than five languages. The one in the bathroom had racked up seven.

Between rounds of a fighting game they had never seen before, they drew chopsticks from their takeout to pick sleeping spaces. Andy's repeated demands to be 'wrapped in thick furs in the only room with no windows' were ignored by Jared. John wasn't entirely present for the short chopstick picking due to be unconscious, due to thinking the walls were going to eat him and trying to dive, in his own words, 'through the floor.' He came to holding the short chopstick, and took the couch. Andy stripped one bed and climbed underneath it, dragging the blankets in after him like a prospector entering a familiar cave. Jared slept like a log in the remaining single bed, molesting the hotel-issue array of pillows.

Morning found John and Jared each on their sixth cup of coffee, and Andy semi-vertical and ready to complain. John had commandeered the desk for purposes Andy proclaimed were 'nefarious,' while Jared looked pensively at the vista of Tokyo-3, enough baggage under his eyes to keep the three Americans in novelty T-shirts for a decade.

"Oy, what is this strange plot you're concocting here, Genoni?" Andy barked.

Jared was so severely startled from his revere that he poked himself in the eye. "AAAH! God damn it! Can't you warm up to this insanity, Andy? "

Looking at his swearing friend, "Did someone poke you in the eye?"

An orb of burning madness pinned Andy to the carpet like a moth under a needle.

John didn't even look up from his work. "To answer your question, Andy, I'm drawing up a contract to ensure our 'Three Goons' isn't stolen by somebody."

Andy ignored the glaring American rubbing his bruised eye and immediately began to lord over Genoni, his voice thunderous. "What? You mean you're copyrighting 'Three Goons'?"

John spun the chair around to face Andy, a remarkable feat considering the chair did not swivel. His finger tips met in the classic Mr. Burns position. "Yesss."

"Why you? We're the other two thirds this Three Goons speaks of."

Jared got off the bed, a make-shift black patch over his injured eye. He tied his black hotel-issue robe shut and parked himself at Andy's shoulder. "Quit talking like you own the idea, Andy."

Andy looked at his friend. "You think you're Toshiro Mifune now?"

Jared looked at himself, then dropped into a kendo stance. "Release those media rights, you knave!"

Andy whipped out a 2x4. "Why should I?"

Jared drew a fine katana from... somewhere. Casually examining the blade, "No reason."

Meanwhile, across the street, encamped on another building, watching through binoculars, wearing uniforms, Japanese, soldiers, spoke.

The taller one lowered the binoculars. "I'm amazed they haven't killed off each other yet..."

The shorter man frowned, watching the building without optical aid. "How can they just pull out those kinds of weapons?"

The tall one rubbed at his eyes and raised the binoculars. "You probably don't want to know."

A chirp sounded from the short man's belt. "Lobby is getting paged."

* * *

The JSSDF officer charged with central lobby security was not in the habit of humoring fools unless they outranked him. Further, he was not nurturing a predilection for enduring salvos of American swagger and unreasonable, profanity-laced demands in a gaijin tongue. Thus, the time he spent in the verbal sights of Jared was, in his book, time that could have been better spent lubricating his eyeballs with shards of broken glass.

"But I want some fresh air!" Jared exclaimed.

For the seventeenth time, the officer grit his teeth and replied, politely, "I'm sorry for causing you an inconvenience, but you cannot go outside without the Commander's permission and an escort."

The American's words ran through familiar arguments with the boundless energy of a bobcat on crystal meth. "Then get his permission. I don't mind an escort."

"I am sorry, but the Commander is unavailable."

The last seventeen times he said this, the American would make a ludicrous accusation about some entirely unrelated matter and restate the first question with more arm-waving. Yet this time he shrugged and looked wistfully through the lobby's armored glass doors. He mumbled something under his breath.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that," the officer said.

"Nothing," the American said quickly. "Look, I'm goin' outside with, or without your permission. You can deal with this the hard way or the easy way. What'll it be?"

The officer sighed. This hotel was locked up tighter than his aunt's purse strings. Unless Americans could turn invisible or phase through concrete like the super-powered 'heroes' from their endlessly dull comic book franchises, there more a chance of him dealing with a whiny American than an actual security threat. "Now look here..." The empty air waited patiently for him to continue.

The officer blinked at the air. "Where'd he--"

The quickest of glances at the rest of the lobby confirmed it was missing an insane American.

"Kuso!"

* * *

Phone calls were made. Alarms were sounded. People were roused from sleeping in.

Wait, I actually made that last one up. No-one in anime ever has to sleep in, since school doesn't start until half-past ten in the morning, and most office workers don't even have to think about their cubicle-encircled desks until around two in the afternoon. At least from looking at how the sun is positioned in…

What?

Okay, I'll stop nit-picking and get back to the story.

Prick.

Anyway, phone calls were—

What?

No, I didn't say anything insulting to the audience.

Nothing at all.

Assholes.

Anyway, NERV security was tying its collective panties in a knot while Jared wandered the streets of Tokyo-3. Any American loose on the streets is a bad thing. Worse if they're wanted by the military for knowing way too much about delicate operations taking place only in the highest of high security conditions. Infinitely worse still if said American wears a black robe, holding a scythe in one hand with much _familiarity_, and caressing a yellowed, wrinkled paper lists that stinks of something unspeakably ancient, like a list of mortal lives to be taken that was old when the world was born.

The mumbling in foreign tongues is what we call icing on the cake. He hemmed and hawed, and gawked and stared, as he strolled around the sights, taking in the essence of the city. The public scattered when he passed.

When he took note of a sale on CD's at a small shop, he gave pause. "Hmm… Kind sir, are these for sale?"

The elderly gentleman with white hair standing near the door replied in Japanese, confusing the young American. Unfortunately, confusion and common sense could not slow down Jared, let alone stop him. He swept up a handful of the brightly-colored merchandise. "How much for these?

Again, the man spoke in Japanese, pointing to a large sign, filled with kanji and some very large numbers.

Jared squints at the sign for a moment, then checks a wallet for some bills and thrusts them at the proprietor.

* * *

Back at a certain hotel, a certain JSSDF officer looked around in a panic for his wallet.

* * *

The goon dressed as death wandered away from the vendor, CD's tucked and ready for rapid deployment, machine-gun style, into a handy CD player.

If only he had one…

Realizing this terrible oversight, Jared was about to return to the CD shop when an old man bumped into him. For a moment, the goon thought he had bumped into a small pile of dirt, as the old man was bent low under the weight of his years and wore a worn cloak that hid every detail of the man but his travel-tattered boots and rickety voice.

"Mr. Foreigner?" A coarse greeting tore at the goon's ears.

Jared did a double-take at the dirt mound and properly computed he was looking at a person-ish thing. "Sorry dude, I can't speak Japanese yet--hey! You speak English!"

"Of course, I lived in America for several years."

The wind in Jared's sails flagged for a moment. "Oh, you learned the shitty English."

A dry chuckle prefaced the Old Man's words, "Ah, ahem. Yes, basically. I have something to tell you, and a gift... of sorts."

"How about an auto-translator?" Jared pressed.

The robes hesitated for a moment, a truly impressive feat, since they didn't move. "Maybe not, but I do have some special beans."

An eyebrow was speculatively raised. "Pinto or lima?"

"Magic."

"Riiiiight."

"And as for your advice. The mauve chair and the plate seagull fish Moscow at flute."

Jared's face lit up at once. "How much?"

"I have little need for money. But if you have something to bargain…"

A portable Nintendo gaming system flowed from Jared's voluminous robes as wishes from a Genie's fingers. "How about this?"

The gaming system appeared in a set of tiny gnarled hands that resembled nothing so much as old tree roots. "Holy cow! You can have 'em all!"

"Uh... sure," Jared said, now holding a tiny cloth bag. He turned to leave when the sound of metal sliding against metal sounded from the old man.

One of the tree-root hands was holding out a small tin filled with curious strong mints. "Altoid?"

Not wanting to be a rude, and also loving the strong mints, Jared took one. "Thanks, dude."

The freaky hands waved. "Sayonara!"

"Bye, Altoid man!" Jared peaked into the bag. "Hmm, hope John won't miss that. There's something on these. 'F.M.'?" Now confused, "Cool."

* * *

"I don't know what worries me more; that I traded your portable entertainment for a sack of freaking magical beans and life has been so weird for so long that this doesn't shock me, or that I can't count these beans and come up with the same number twice and this also doesn't shock me."

"Dude, we've been here for like, two days. And what's ever shocked you? And… YOU GAVE AWAY MY WHAT?!"

"It's not like you were actually going to use it... that much... while fighting in an Eva," Seeing John's anger near critical mass, he quickly pressed onward to diffuse the situation. "Well, it's not like you've had much of a chance to play it yet."

"Grrr..."

"I mean, with it still in the box, which meant it was... well, I'm sure there's a bright side to this, I mean… uh, you know, this made me sound a lot more innocent in my head. Can I try again, maybe with some props?"

"How about you quit giving all my electronic games to geriatric lunatics!"

"Now, let's not get crazy here. I'm no genie."

John simmered as the three continued walking down a massive generic hallway somewhere in NERV. The three were flanked on all sides by burly security guards that the trio had been pranking mercilessly since they'd all be rounded up and escorted into the most secure giant biomechanical war machine storage and operations center in the world.

After a moment of blissful silence, the group leaves the hallway, passes through a huge armored door, and crosses a catwalk over an apparently bottomless pit. Mid-way across the catwalk, John snatches the F.M. bag from Jared and throws it over the railing.

"Hey!" Jared protested.

"Quiet. When you find my game system, I'll go get your beans."

Jared attacked his 'friend.'

* * *

An hour later, the goons were locked in another observation room eerily similar to the place they were taken after their triumphant arr—er, after almost getting killed by Asuka two days previous.

Not to be confused with Asuka trying to kill them when they were _in_ the room, and when Asuka tried repeatedly to kill them during the synch testing.

Finally, Misato walked in, trailed by Asuka. Asuka glared at Jared, who immediately ran up to her and bowed at her feet.

"Ugh," the Second Child said with feeling, then began translating Misato's brief speech, a thing she appeared to be afraid to make in front of the Americans.

"We've got your synch test results and... You three _can_ pilot Evangelions. Mind you, this doesn't mean you _will_..."

But the three weren't paying attention to her, caught up in their dance of joy.

"You know what this means?!" Jared exclaimed, jubilant.

"We may have Evas?!" John exclaimed, enraptured.

"We may have Evas?!" Andy exclaimed, gleeful.

"I already said that!" John exclaimed, estatic.

"No! We get to bug Misato and move in with her!" Jared exclaimed, a mile-wide smile on his face.

John and Andy stared at Jared. After a second, BIG grins formed on their faces.

As Asuka finishes translating their deranged screaming to Misato, the Major starts to turn beet-red.

"When will he learn?" Andy asked rhetorically.

* * *

Some time later, the three had been brought to a firing range. Heaven only knows what sort of nut case thinks bringing Americans to a firing range could be a good thing. And putting them in giant robots? Truly, the world is doomed.

Inside of a 'safe' bunker, Ritsuko was directing John. "Okay John, just line up the targets and squeeze the trigger."

John squeezed off five shots so fast the echoes overlapped into one big boom that made Ritsuko's hair stand straight up.

In a bored tone, "Anything else?"

The doctor looked at the perfect bullseye and shared a worried glance with Misato. "Uh... no."

* * *

Jared took his turn.

"Line up the targets and pull the trigger... why are you switching to manual?" Ritsuko tapped the controls. "Is this thing on? Jared? Jared, respond!"

But he wasn't listening, concentrating intently on the target in front of him. After a few seconds to line up, he fired off eight quick shots.

"Dammit, Jared! We--... Uh..." Ritsuko stared at the Lethal Weapon-esque smiley-face on the target. "Right."

* * *

Andy went last, on the account of a very... persuasive crowbar.

"Now, just--" A sudden salvo of gunfire, emptying an entire clip, interrupts the doctor, who watched as everything _but_ the target was destroyed.

"Why did you do that?" She demanded angrily.

Andy scoffed. "Well, the target obviously wasn't going to hurt me."

"And those hills were?!"

Andy performed a dramatic hair-toss, but whatever effect it might have had was lost due to the LCL and lack of video communications. "Details, details, details..."

* * *

After a good day's 'work,' the Americans were getting changed in the pilot's locker room, admiring how much the place looked just like in the anime. Though one crucial fixture was missing…

"Why did Shinji leave so quickly? I only gave him a few rat tails."

John ordered up his best disgusted face and showed it to Jared. "You gave him a few red marks on the ass."

Smiling evilly, Jared replied, "Now guys, there's no reason to cower on the other side of the room, is there?"

"You tell us. And I'm not cowering," Andy said while cowering.

"That's it, you have to do the paperwork," John said, pulling the last of his meager belongings from his locker.

Jared stamped his foot like an angry five-year-old. "Aw... guys!"

"Well, after we take care of some… pressing business." John said.

"You mean…" Jared's tongue was already hanging out.

A wicked grin split John's face. "Yes."

The same grin was promptly mirrored on Jared's mug.

"Guys?" Andy asked, looking worriedly at the other Americans. "Guys?"

The grins grew wider.

"GUYS?!"

* * *

An unknown amount of time later, in an unknown location, there is a very dark room with a bright spotlight trained on a single exam table. Strapped to said table is one Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. Naked.

With Jared leering at her.

"You'll never get anything out of me."

"But I don't want anything _out_ of you..." Jared said, leering even more, then suddenly pulling back after a dull 'thud' noise, his eyes rolling up into his head.

John put his tack hammer away, then leaned over the doctor a shook a small bottle in front of her face. "These are smelling salts. Read the label."

"There's an aphrodisiac in that!" The doctor began pulling at her bonds.

"Now, give us our own Evas or I leave you in the room with him, or... Plan B."

The struggling intensified. "What's Plan B?"

John dipped his fingers in a glass of water and flicked a few drops on the Doctor's forehead. "This."

Ritsuko's reply was frames with a growl. "Bastard."

"Evangelions."

"Never, you'll destroy the world!"

"Before you and Gendo can?"

Ritsuko began to move her eyebrows; trying to stop the itching. "I don't know what you're talking about."

John smiled. "Oh, but you do. Don't be coy. Evas, good ones. American Evas, designed to our specifications."

"Suppose we did request that kind of Eva. What makes you think they would even build them?"

Still smiling. "We're Americans. We know our own. We just say that we'll destroy Tokyo-3 every time we go out and they'll gift-wrap them with a giant red bow."

Ritsuko finally screams in frustration.

"Is that itching, Doctor? I still have Plan A." He shook the bottle again, then quickly dodged a wad of phlegm.

"You'll never break me."

"This can go on as long it has to, but remember Jared will wake up soon regardless."

Finally defiance gives way to complete desperation. "I did the tests myself, you're not crazy, you're sanest person in this damned city! Why are you doing this?!"

"Andy would say, 'we _need_ Mecha.' That's not the case. Jared would say, 'because it's fun.' That's not it either. I guess, that... doing this asserts my sanity, I know I'm sane, because I know exactly what I'm doing."

And then he smiled the smile he used in his drugged interrogation.

Ritsuko cracked. She promised Evas, weapons, their own offices, an apartment next to Misato's, a paycheck by the hour, and anything else they wanted if he'd just let her loose. Then she confessed her soul on everything she'd ever done, some of it John knew. But other stuff, like the seven times she and Maya had stayed for a few extra hours of... training, and the time she got drunk with Misato and they got down on each other, and a bunch of other names and deeds the ranged from mega-hentai to super-evil. Needless to say, John felt very dirty as Ritsuko cleaned her soul on him like a towel. It ended unmercifully hours later, Jared still wasn't even stirring. But the look on his face told John he was wide awake and listening in awe.

As Ritsuko finished, John removed the straps. The doctor finally went silent. "Anything else you'd like to add?" He asked.

Rubbing her forehead to drive away the unbearable itch. "Get out of my face."

John gave Jared a few hard slaps to 'wake' him. "In due time, just sign this." He held up a clipboard. "It's an agreement that you hold your end of the bargain, and we don't ever use the water torture again."

Wordlessly, the paperwork is signed.

"Plan A is still viable though."

Jared winked, and with an evil smirk said, "Tah! NINJA VANISH!!!"

* * *

It wasn't much later when Jared strolled into Gendo's office unannounced.

"Gendo, you seen Ritsuko? She has to sign this thing for Maya."

Gendo refolded his hands in front of his mouth, presumably because his gloves smell of lilacs. "No."

Jared 'accidentally' dropped the clipboard and 'accidentally' kicked it under Gendo's desk. A few seconds later it slid back.

Smiling evilly, the American picked up the clipboard. "Nice kick." Glancing at the paperwork, "Hey cool, you can write in Ritsuko's handwriting with your feet!" He tossed the clipboard at Gendo. "It needs your signature too, dude."

Gendo scribbled his name and threw the board back at Jared violently.

"Well, I gotta get this back to Maya, you two play nice."

Jared left, whistling.

Gendo sighed and refolded his hands. Switching to Japanese, "Idiot."

From under the desk, "I'm going to kill that boy."

"Did I order you to stop?"

* * *

Much, much later, the Americans stand before Hallowed Ground… er, flooring. One could almost hear 'Also Spratch Zarathustra' playing as the Americans worshiped the door to… Misato's apartment!

I'll give you a moment.

Anyway, the Goons finally doing… whatever, and Pose Dramatically.

"Finally…" John said.

"We WILL move in with Misato!" Jared shouted to the heavens.

The two displayed their matching smirks. "You got the paperwork signed, right?" John asked his partner in crime.

"Of course!"

"Eeexcellent," John said, craftily imitating a certain well-known character created by Matt Groeing.

Jared stepped to one side, revealing a stack of papers that came up to his shoulders. Andy and John promptly grabbed huge chunks of it and began to read intently.

"Our own Ferraris?" John said, nearly drooling.

"Yeah, if they ever get here."

"YES!" Andy shouted, dancing with joy. "Custom Evas! Any of you have the specs on Wing Zero from Gundam Wing?"

"Oh please, we don't need to--"

"Nani?" Asked Misato, leaning out of her open apartment door to read the bilingual contract over John's shoulder.

Immediately the goons deposit the papers back into the master pile and try to look innocent. John checks his nails while Andy whistles some SF theme.

"Nice to see you're home, ma'am." Jared said.

Asuka appeared in the door, snorting in disgust as Jared instantly dropped into a properly worshipful stance. Misato exchanged some words with the redhead, who made a face and addressed John. "Misato-san wants to know what the paperwork is for."

John didn't blink. "What paperwork?"

Asuka tightly shut her eyes and counted to ten, but glanced at Jared when she got to three and had to start over. After that was done, she turned to Andy. "Same question."

Nonplussed, "I have no idea paperwork you are talking about. We were going to get some help to pick out our furniture."

"Help… picking out… furniture?" Asuka boggled.

"How can they afford furniture?" Shinji asked, now peeking through the door.

"How would I know? I speak English, not 'moron'."

Shinji decided to spend a minute processing that one.

"Actually, we got credit cards," Jared offered.

Asuka's face was slightly pale. "You can speak… Japanese?"

"I can understand a bit of it. Too much subtitled Anime." He went back to bowing.

"Credit cards? How can you three rejects from a bad horror movie have credit cards?!" Asuka shouted.

"All Americans come with credit cards, part of being born American and all that," John said, as if he answered this question every day.

"Boy, am I sorry I asked. Waddell, get off the goddamn ground and tell me what's in that paperwork."

Standing, Jared looked nervously at the paperwork, and fidgeted like an eleven-year-old girl that had just accidentally killed her cat. "Um…" John and Andy stood silently by while Jared waffled for a solid minute, speaking only when Misato pulled out her service pistol and checked on the clip. "What, er… paperwork?"

Then a huge gust of wind attacked the balcony, and the paper column exploded into individual sheets, coating the goons, Misato, Asuka, the door, the entire balcony, and indeed, most of the building in paper.

Jared, with two sheets of paper stuck to his lips, spoke apologetically. "Okay, I lied. We were going to leave out contracts here while we go shopping for some essentials."

Misato pulled several sheets of paper from her face. She muttered to herself in Japanese, "Shopping? Leaving something here…" Then he eyes fell on the paper in her hand.

APARTMENT ASSIGNMENT:

KAIJUUKURI BLDG. #724

"What the…"

"We've got to learn Japanese," John said to Andy, as Misato and Asuka swore, exchanged foreign epithets, and peeled as much of the rogue paper from their clothes as possible. Shinji jumped into the conversation, and quickly the two women simmered down.

Via Asuka's translation, Misato asked, "How did you get assigned to the apartment next to _mine_?!"

Before John could stop him, Jared answered, glowing with pride, "We kidnapped Dr. Akagi and wore down her will until she would have signed away her own mother… which is actually not accurate because she would sign away her own mother for a nickel, bitch that she was—but anyway, after a long and arduous interrogation with a lot of… persuasion on our part, John and I managed to get NERV to agree to sign these contracts."

Deadpan, Asuka said, "You kidnapped and tortured a NERV employee in order to extort cash and valuables on the government dime?"

"You know, my version makes us sound less…" Jared searched for the right word in vain, John's hands slowly easing into place around his neck.

"Criminal?" Asuka offered.

Jared might have said something, but it's kind of hard to talk when a homicidal maniac has a death-grip on your trachea and is trying to make an omelet out of your brains.

"Are they going to kill each other?" Shinji asked. "Dinner's getting cold, and this could take a while."

"It'd be worth it," Asuka said, Misato nodding emphatically.

"You've got a point, there," Shinji agreed. "Anyone want popcorn?"

"I do," said Misato.

"I'm fine," said Asuka. "Hey, Shinji, before you get that, do you still have that webcam?"

"I think so, I'll go check."

Andy sensed a need to fill the air with sounds other than struggling and muted curses. "Um, we didn't get keys. Do you guys know how to get inside?"

From the ground, "MEDIC!"

"DIE!!!"

* * *

The sun was a blazing ball of fire, setting the horizon alight in iridescent orange.

And the goons were missing it, sitting in a room in NERV's infirmary. Jared had bandages from shoulder to fingernails on one arm, one leg in a splint, a brace across his nose, and several patches on his bare arm. This is all to say nothing of the wrappings around his head.

John had one arm in a sling, one foot in a cast, some wrapped around his upper arm, and curiously, a bandage running around his head and over one eye. His glasses were still in place, right over the bandage as if nothing were amiss, though one couldn't check for bleed-through since they were catching so much glare from the infirmary lights they could have… been something that… glared. A lot. Like… chrome?

It's Monday as I write this, okay. Cut me some slack.

A doctor came back into the room, a heavy stack of folders in hand, Andy following like a bear searching for food. Pushing his glasses up, the doctor took in the pair with a critical eye. "I know what you're thinking, but no…"

Aghast, Jared stood and stamped his foot. "OW!" Shaking off the pain, "Damn it, how could I _not_ be pregnant?!"

"Do I… do I have the right room?" The doc fumbled with the folders for a moment.

John, who had just removed the bandage from his eye… without removing or disturbing his glasses, stood. "Yes. He's just being… normal."

The doc turned to Jared with a questioning look. By way of reply, Jared rapidly stripped off his bandages and performed a back flip in place, followed by a short bow. "Ta-da!"

John was out of his bandages in one second, and cracked his knuckles in the second.

The doctor took in the bloodstained bandages and the completely unmarred skin of the two Americans, and did the professional thing; he fainted.

Then Jared also collapsed. "Trick knee!" he cried from the floor. "Gets me every time!"

"Can it do Around the World?" Andy asked eagerly.

From the floor, "Fuck. You."

"Well, can you walk?" Andy persisted.

"Of course," Jared said.

A moment passed.

"I'm waiting," Andy chimed, watching his watch as a cat would a mouse.

"Just give me a minute."

"I already did. And, I'm getting hungry." Andy whined.

"Okay," John grabbed one leg. "You get the other one. On three…"

Andy quickly got into position. "Two…"

The door opened, admitting Ritsuko. "What's taking Dr. Barnsbury…" she trailed off as she spied the two figures on the floor. In English, "If you three can move, get out of here. Now."

"It was like this--" Jared started, then squawked as John and Andy dragged him from the room at around eighty miles per hour. "Hey, what gives?!"

"Did you see the size of that fuckin' cannon she had holstered?!" Andy said, pale as a new moon.

"That gun was bigger than her!" John exclaimed, fear giving his feet wings.

"What kind of psycho runs this place?!" Andy exclaimed, then stopped as John dropped his half of Jared.

John boggled.

Jared untangled himself from the floor, made to yell at John, then stopped, and turned to boggle at Andy as well.

"Andy," John deadpanned in a saccharine voice, "Where are we?"

"In a hallway," Andy said, clearly puzzled.

"In what building?"

"The second infirmary, east wing."

"Of…"

"NERV."

"And who runs NERV?"

Gears turned. "Well, SEELE does in the conspiratorial sense, but Gendo's basically in charge for… OH! So the psycho is Gendo! Hah!" Andy snapped his fingers and pointed at John with a knowing wink. "I see what you did there."

"Do you?" John continued, still deadpan.

"I don't," Jared put in, like a neglected step-child.

* * *

"This sucks," Jared said, looking over the empty apartment.

"It's pretty nice, by Tokyo-3 standards," John commented. "But we do need furniture."

"Television. We need a television," Andy insisted. "What do you think we can fit in here?"

"About twenty people nominally, maybe thirty at beer-distance." Jared commented, then collapsed. "Damn trick knee!"

"Does it beg?" Andy asked.

John sighed. "We need help."

"That's true," Asuka said from behind the trio.

The two parties turned to face one another. Asuka had brought Shinji along as a kind of human shield. He was keeping his distance from the goons, but didn't look bothered by their presence.

John was watching the pair like a mad scientist overseeing an experiment. Andy gave them a quick glance, mentally calculated a few firing angles, and took to poking Jared's knee. The smallest goons rolled over on the floor to face the Eva pilots.

"Hey, dude," he said to Shinji with a wave.

"Um, could we ask a bit of a favor?" John asked, once the light over his head went on. He blinked, and looked up. Apparently Jared's trick knee could turn on the living room lights.

Asuka pulled her hand back from the light switch. "You're welcome, and try to keep it down, or I'm calling security."

"Wait!" Andy shouted as she turned to leave, "You're a girl!"

"You figure that out all by yourself, psycho-boy?"

Andy ignored the dig, pointing at Asuka as he 'explained' his 'thoughts' to John. "She can help us pick out furniture. She's got, taste and stuff."

"It's nice to hear you compliment someone for a change, but that's awfully sexist." John said dryly.

Jared came off the floor and hurled himself at Andy like a wrecking ball. "FOR THE GODDESS!!!"

Asuka watched with some degree of amusement until Misato burst into the apartment, gun drawn.

"What's going on here?" She asked Asuka.

"Americans," Asuka supplied automatically.

"Yeah, Americans," Shinji quickly agreed. "Is it all right for them to be our neighbors? I mean, is security going to be down here all the time?"

Misato holstered her piece. "Well, they aren't hurting anyone but each other, so probably not until--"

A particularly bone-jarring impact with the concrete frame around the sliding glass doors finally knocks out Andy. Jared, bleeding in several places, backs away slowly.

"--One of them gets knocked out. And then security will put them on ice."

One cue, dozens of armor-wearing, black-clad spec-ops types rush the room, subduing a grumbling John and Jared.

Misato dusted her hands off. "Well, that's that. Why'd you guys come over here, anyway?"

"Bored," Asuka answered.

* * *

Before long, the goons were seated in the waiting are back in the infirmary. This time Ritsuko came to them directly, clearly nowhere near pleased with their arrival.

"Twice in one day would be impressive. Twice within a few hours is getting crazy. Twice within a few hours because of _each other_ is totally fucking insane."

"Thanks!" Jared said brightly, then Andy decked him.

"Okay, I hate to question fools, but do you guys ever actually hurt one another?"

"Sometimes," John said, thoughtful. "I mean, I just put together a little special effects after we arrived, but our recent injuries have been… genuine."

Ritsuko did not look amused. "And your bones knit together in a matter of minutes."

Jared disentangled himself from Andy and stood before the doctor. He gestured to his wounds. "Oh, we're still injured, we just _look_ all better. Observe." He pulled a pair of sunglasses from his shirt pocket and put them on. Suddenly he looked completely health—err, uninjured.

Ritsuko was still not amused.

Jared grabbed a cream pie from somewhere and smashed it in his own face, then did a quick tap-dance routine.

Ritsuko was still not amused.

Wiping the pie from his face, "Well, I'm out of ideas." He collapsed. "Trick knee!"

"Can it recite the presidents of the United States in order of age at time of inauguration?" Andy asked eagerly.

"Actually, I think it's broken," John ventured.

"Seen enough. Get out of here and get yourselves situated in your apartment. That's an order!"

"You need a whip with that vitrol, babe?" Jared said, offering a coiled bullwhip.

Eyeing the leather implement, "What's that for?"

"For whipping."

"Leave."

The three human-shape dust clouds made no argument, and quickly dissipated to the winds… err, the air conditioning.

Ritsuko picked up the whip laying on the floor and returned to her office.

* * *

Some time later, as night was fully gripping the city, the goons arrived, again, at Misato's. A detour through a local store yielded a dress shirt for Jared, who opted to keep his slacks and kung-fu slippers, insisting against all common sense that they went fine with his pants. John had secured a nice polo shirt, khaki pants and some proper Italian dress shoes.

Andy had, sadly, found a supplier of garish Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts, and sturdy sandals, and was… 'dressed' in new patterns.

"Well, it's now or never," John said in a voice so grave it almost drew its own handguns and made religious invocations in Latin. He knocked on the door.

This time Rei and Asuka answered. Asuka had changed into some shorts and a pink T-shirt with a slogan across the front in German, while the albino was in her usual school uniform. "We're out of popcorn," Asuka announced with a smirk.

"Damn," Andy said.

John attempted to sound formal, "Look, we need to get some basics for our place. Beds, couch, food, that kind of thing. We already got some clothes, but couldn't get directions to the other store and wound up here instead. Could one of you perhaps spend a minute guiding us to the right place?"

"Americans asking for help, this is rich." The smirk grew.

"We're not normal Americans," John said with an evil smirk.

"I can see that. Misato!" She yelled into the apartment. "The dorks want a chaperone for their shopping!"

The Major was at the door in seconds. "You aren't worried about attacking Angels and Evangelions stepping on you, but you freak out at psychological tests and shopping?"

"Something like that," John said. Jared and Andy contributed nothing.

Misato seemed to think this over, making her decision as soon as she saw Asuka 'innocently' polishing a massive wooden mallet. "Well, I've got some reports to finish up, but since security is still around--" A JSSDF hovergunship obligingly flew overhead. "--I don't see why the Children can't come with you."

"Thanks."

"I mean, since you can't even function in public without help."

"Hey, now."

Asuka disappeared for a moment, returning with Shinji in tow. "We'll be back shortly."

The instant she stepped outside, Jared was attached to her like a leech.

After a second, Asuka put her mallet away.

John squinted at Jared's airborne form as it cleared the next block of apartment buildings. "Nice hang time, Ms. Sohryu."

"Thanks.... um... Worm."

"Excuse me?"

Asuka was already walking towards the elevator. "Worm. That's what I'll call you."

John was in hot pursuit. "No fair! I want to be Psycho!"

"No. But Andy can be the Maniac."

"Thanks," Andy said with a graceful bow. "Um, is anyone going to collect Waddell?"

"No, we've got shopping to do."

Andy's face lit up. "I have an idea."

"You're not going to hunt down and kill Jared like wild game."

The light in the Maniac's dimmed, then burned brightly again. "I have another idea!"

"You aren't going to hunt down and kill Ayanami-san like wild game."

And did his flickering light bulb face again. "Okay, I have another idea!"

"Andy…" John started.

"Just have the Faceless Minions go shopping. They're here to do our bidding, aren't they?"

"…What the fuck are you on about?" John demanded.

"Didn't Jared show you his seeds?" Andy pleaded.

John looked at his friend, thinking. Finally, he spoke as if trying to calm a mad dog, "Andy, did you get hit in the head?"

"They came in a bag, remember?" Andy prompted, annoyed.

"Those were beans."

"You planted them in NERV," the Maniac persisted.

"…" John eloquently surmised. Then he shrugged. "We all did want this world to be less… dark."

"Man, and I don't even have a video camera on hand."

"Can it, Sohryu."

A raspberry was the reply.

Completely fed up with the lack of help, Andy bellowed, "FACELESS MINIONS! ARISE!!!"

It's not everyday that one sees hundreds of anonymous uniformed men pop out of the ground like daisies. "Holy shit!" Asuka swore, "It's not everyday that I see hundreds of anonymous uniformed men pop out of the ground like daisies!"

John blinked. "Uh, Minions! Furnish our apartment!" The minions disappeared. "How the hell does that work?" He wondered out loud.

"Don't know, don't care. Let's go home; I'm tired," Jared rambled, standing next to John, covered in bandages.

"Weren't you…" John started.

"Hm?" Jared perked up.

"Didn't you…" John tried again.

"Hm?" Jared motioned for the goon to continue.

"Never mind," John sighed. "What else was I going to do?"

"Say hi to Ayanami-chan?" Jared prompted.

"Oh yeah," John said. "Hi, Rei-chan."

"hello," the albino replied.

"Done?" Asuka asked.

"Yes," said Andy.

The door closed.

The goons went to their apartment.

End Chapter 3

**

* * *

**

**Author's Note:** Episode 3 of the original was a weak one, heavy on filler. I'm cutting boring clutter here. Also, no promises on a quick update.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** Yay! Three chapters and no binge-drinking!

...Well, where did you think our creativity came from?

We don't own the rights to Eva or any of the countless series we spoof. This is fanfiction, and by necessity, we are hardly even in the same story, especially seeing as the Evas defeated the 7th Angel on the first outing, and it didn't split into pieces. At least we didn't state that it did. This is probably your last taste of proper brevity in this series; I hope you appreciated it.

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 4: Being of Sound Mind and Body / Where are the keys?

* * *

It was a dark and stormy night.

Hey, at least we didn't _start_ the series with that line.

And anyway, it _was_ a dark and stormy night.

"This isn't any steppe dry-land wussy rain back home. These drops are big as gophers!" John said in annoyance.

Some say that the weather is a great omen of things to come.

"Isn't the simile 'cats and dogs'?" Andy offered.

A night such as this could signify a coming disaster...

Jared put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a horrible... well, to call it a British accent is punishable by death. Let's just say he talked weirder than usual. "Japan is an island, we're right next to the Pacific Ocean. This is an entirely differently climate than back home." Jared blinked, then took off the non-prescription glasses.

A night such as this could signify the dawn of a new hope, tread upon with trepidation.

(Yes. _Trepidation_. Yes I own a thesaurus. A recent acquisition, purchased _new_. Call me a nerd, and witness me look up a _trenchant riposte_ to your crude grasp at an inferior insult. - _Ed._)

John sighed and rubbed his temples, tired of both his friend's lunacy and the constant bickering of the creators. "I am fully aware of the meteorological differences between Kennewick, Washington 1999 and Tokyo-3, Japan 2015."

Or it could just mean that it's raining and no one wants to go outside.

Jared posed, katakana reading 'MO-MEN-TUM' appearing briefly on his face. "Well!! Who's up for some anime?"

* * *

Misato was in her office when the NERV agents tasked with observing the Americans called in to report that the trio had barricaded themselves inside their apartment.

"I _know_ that," Misato said, sighing heavily. "I live next door. They haven't been outside in a week, but I haven't heard anything from inside."

"They were soundproofing the place before we lost contact with our bugs. We suspect they're alive from the vibrations detected from your apartment."

Misato scowled, but said nothing.

"And, well, several large boxes were delivered to their apartment. A television and some stereo equipment, and cases of unmarked tapes. We've tracked them back to an anonymous duplicating service that doesn't keep records."

_Great,_ she thought. _A bunch of gun-crazy porn addicts._ "Look, you guys are the alleged experts here. What now?"

"The only phone in the apartment was last reported to be flying out of the window when we first tried to contact them. The front door is barricaded. We tried rappelling through the windows, but those have been block off as well. I would like permission to use a shape charge on your wall to make a temporary entry point.

_Useless._ "Out of the question. Are they broadcasting anything, any transmissions via computer or such?"

"No ma'am. They just came in one day with a bunch of supplies and after they got the tapes, haven't left since."

"And we have no idea what's on the tapes," she mused aloud. "Well, if you get any response from them, I want to be the first one to know."

"Yes Ma'am."

Misato sighed as she put away her phone.

An amused chuckle cut into the silence from the faux blond in the guest chair. "You sound like you miss them."

Misato shrugged in the general direction of the doctor. "Well, the blond kid did manage to get Asuka off my back for a while."

Ritsuko chuckled a little at the memory. "I don't think even Shinji has gotten her that mad before."

"Things just seem a lot more quiet around here now that they've locked themselves in. I don't know if it's culture shock, jet lag, or what. They've closed all outside communication... I just don't know what to do." She didn't add commentary on how useless NERV security was being.

Ritsuko didn't miss a beat as she replied, "Look on the bright side, from what we've seen of them, they've probably attacked each other with one survivor feeding off his companions' remains until the mortal wound he suffered from the conflict finally takes its toll and he dies too. We'll have three dead bodies that don't exist, and we can take a non-trip to the incinerator, not fire it up, and forget about nothing in particular."

"The blond kid really made an impression on you didn't he?" Said Misato, deadpan.

"Not just that one..." Ritsuko muttered.

"I hope they come out soon. We have the language classes all setup for them."

"Not to mention the Americans have completed the new Evas to their... specifications." Ritsuko said, a thick glaze of distaste encrusting her words.

Misato arched an eyebrow. "How did they get to have a say in Evas they shouldn't even know about?"

"The American Way," Ritsuko intoned quietly, as if fearing the words would summon Them.

"They bribed you?"

"Trickery and deceit."

Misato nodded in agreement. "I'm not surprised, they know a lot about a lot here and they also spew a bunch of bullshit. I wouldn't be shocked if one of them claimed that there was a room full of Rei Ayanami's downstairs." She laughed at her own joke. Ritsuko chuckled. Once. "But seriously," the Major continued, "How long are they going to stay in there?

* * *

Two weeks later, after her usual morning routine, Misato led her charges out of the apartment, on their way to another boring day of tests, morale-sucking drills, and hours of brooding. At least the drills were better than going out against an Angel.

After shutting the front door to her apartment and checking the electronic lock, she glanced at apartment 724. Behind her, Shinji was already punching the elevator button while Asuka was warming up her screeching harpy yell by a flinging a few backhanded compliments at him.

Then the door to apartment 724 slid open with a loud and obvious fake 'whoosh.' Fog, also blatantly artificial, billowed out of the dark portal, illuminated by a broken light to create a strange strobe effect. Shinji had taken a few steps towards the door as it opened, but halted a few feet behind Misato, slowly chanting a mantra under his breath. "I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away."

Asuka shifted her stance, both groin kick and murderous glare readied.

Misato was about to storm into the apartment and ask questions when Jared erupted from the abyss like a shot from a cannon.

He was wearing a pair of black dress slacks and a light blue button-up shirt, complete with an eye-bleeding yellow-and-black tie. The tennis shoes make the Young Engineer's outfit. John and Andy actually walk out of the apartment. John is wearing similar black slacks, but eschewed the dress shirt for a simple black polo with the NERV logo over the breast. Leather dress shoes are another nod to style. Andy and style haven't been on talking terms since bell bottoms came back, so he was outfitted in khaki sorts and a huge, garish Hawaiin shirt.

Jared blinked under the full brunt of the terrible, terrible light, looked around, and noticed the neighbors, his gaze turning upon them like a cursed wind.

Misato's English was as rusty as it had been a week ago, but apprehension was gnawing at her nerves. "'Good... good morning, guys."

Jared's reply was in flawless Japanese. "Konichiwa, Misato-san. And what a splendid morning it is, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, Asuka is looking particularly delicious..."

"rrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHAAAAAAAAA!!!" The redhead charged.

As Jared lead Asuka for a few laps around the floor, John gripped to himself in English, "And he promised he's behave." Then, to Misato in Japanese of exceptional quality, "Good morning, Misato-san. I trust that things haven't gotten too out of control during our absence."

"Depends on who you ask..." Misato replied, stunned by the sudden linguistic abilities of the Americans, and to their oddly different appearances.

Andy then bludgeoned into the conversation with usual subtly. "KONNYANYACHIWA!!" Then switched to his raspy Prophecy of Doom voice. "The seven sons of god shall unite over cheese, the Destroyer shall come as one, FEAR THE WRATH OF JAAAAMES!!!"

In passing, Jared shouted at the taller American. "You rang?"

Misato fought to keep one hand off of her sidearm, and lost. "Ummm... John, explanation please?"

Despite the unfamiliar language, John slipped easily into a lecturing voice. "Once upon a time, for reasons we still do not pretend to understand, Jared acquired this little fascination with assassins. From this he developed a character known as James Rahn."

Misato's foot began rapping against the concrete. "Is this going anywhere?"

"Eventually," John said. Returning to lecturing mode, "James Rahn is not the kind of guy you'd want to meet in a dark alley. Actually, he's not the kind of guy you'd want to meet at all--unless you were trying to kill him, but that... is another story. Any way, this 'James"'character started to get a little strange. We kept tinkering with him, like a couple of teenagers tinkering with a car stereo." He pauses to relish the look of disgust and horror on Misato's face, then forces himself to continue. "He started getting stronger, more powerful... and we got careless. And then... there was the cheese." Silent, John hangs his head in remembered shame.

Misato waited. And waited. And waited. "...This isn't going any where, is it?"

John shook himself, like a man suddenly awakened from a deep nightmare. "James is just... just something we don't want to think about. Anything 'James' is just evil distilled, concentrated into it's purest form... added to a cigarette... with no filter..."

"That's great and all, but I was asking about how you three know Japanese and were you got the clothes."

"Oh. Well, we have our ways." John adjusted his glasses.

Misato noticed that while his jiggling of the lenses caused the glare on them to briefly get worse, it did not fade completely even when he removed his hand. She wondered what color his eyes would be if he took the things off.

No answer came from the young man.

"Uh, okay. Have you guys had breakfast yet?"

John looked at her blankly. Or rather, his head pointed at her and his face looked blank. Andy looked at her blankly. Jared finally finished his chase with a panting Asuka and stopped to stare at Misato (bastard wasn't even winded) until Asuka caught her breath and tackled him.

The staring intensified. Jared put Asuka into an arm-bar with one hand to observe with mild interest.

John spoke slowly, as if this was one Japanse word he had never heard before, "Break... fast?"

The NERV Tactical Commander kept a straight face, even as she tried to reason with the morons like they were misbehaving preschoolers. "You know, stuff you eat in the morning?"

Andy was completely mystified by the concept. "Morn... ing?"

"After you wake up?" Misato prompted.

John's contorted as if remembering a great pain, like being stoned to death by angry villagers. "Sunlight? Waking?"

The two standing Americans exchanged a 'she doesn't need the details' glance.

"We had our Dew, we'll be fine." John said cordially, resuming his role as the spokesman.

Jared nodded sagely, and let of go Asuka, who promptly put him into an arm-bar.

_Sunlight? What are they, vampires?_ The sunlight didn't seem to be bothering them now. Then again... she sighed. They were still standing there as if they gone totally crazy in the last two minutes. "Now what?" Misato asked.

The tall one gestured to the elevator that Shinji was holding open. "Let's go."

Asuka shrieked and jumped to her feet, tugging the front of her dress down. "PERVERT! YOU DID THAT DELIBERATELY!!!"

Wearing two black eyes, Jared smiles through his split lip in a disturbing fashion. "No... well, yes. Come back down here and I'll finish the job."

Asuka—although livid—backed away quickly.

John looked his fr—err, associate, and put some steel into his voice. "We're leaving."

Jared was on his feet before Misato, ruffled hair combed perfectly, black eyes hidden under dark shades, lip un-split, and one hand adjusting his freshly pressed tie. She blinked, eyes unable to report that he'd even traversed the space between the ground and standing before her.

Jared finished adjusting the tie. "Then let's get moving."

* * *

Down in the garage level, Misato led the troops to her car, oblivious to the fact that the blue coupe couldn't possibly contain one of the Americans—not without the liberal application of a bone saw, anyway—much less all three in addition to Shinji, Asuka, and herself. The foreigners, however, had spent the springtime of their youths riding in old pickups without seat belts, their respective fathers' arms serving as a 'restraint system' under hard breaking. And while fearless, they weren't stu... okay, they were stupid, but they weren't suicidal, and they were certainly in no mood to play 'clown car' with Misato behind the wheel.

To say nothing of the arguments about who would be sitting on whose lap.

As the Major unlocked her door, the light went on. The comically old-fashioned one over her forehead, not the one in the car; which was burnt out. "Oh wait, my car is a little small for everyone, who wants to walk?"

Shinji and Asuka had their hands in the air, talking rapidly over one another, gushing virtue upon the act of using their legs in the manner god intended, when all three Japanese realized the Americans were nowhere to be seen.

Large tennis shoe, dress shoe, and flip-flop prints were visible, following dust trails leading out of the garage—one through a broken car window, curiously enough—to the empty sidewalk.

The NERV pilots hung their heads low, bangs covering their shadowed eyes as they prepared to tempt fate again, and buckled themselves into Misato's Renault Alpina.

* * *

"WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU BAKAS!"

The scream nearly bowled over said bakas, who weathered the sonic assault with expressions of frank curiosity.

"There is a perfectly rational and reasonable explanation for this," John said to the fuming doctor who had just threatened their hearing.

Three hours had passed since Misato arrived, got lost, and finally found her way to the assigned meeting room with the pilots in tow.

"This had better be good!" Misato cut in.

"John, fire away," Jared said as if he were trustworthy enough to make a decision, any decision. Ever.

Three hours the three hot babes and one spineless wimp waited while NERV security forces tore Tokyo-3 apart, finding not a trace of the Americans.

"Jared, we aren't packing," John replied, ignoring the steaming-mad doctor.

Bets had been made about whether the Goons (as they had been dubbed at some point) continued to exist at all. Some believed they were evil trickster gods deposited here as punishment for flipping up some cosmic skirts they should have known better than to flip.

John ignored the impatient glare from Jared and launched into a Lecture. "While we can now, due to our extensive ummm... 'training,' speak Japanese fluently, we have yet to actually master reading the Kanji. So stupid here—" He gestured to Jared. "—got on the wrong bus."

Oh yeah, Andy wasn't with them.

Jared invoked his Classic Catch Phrase here. "THIS IS NOT MY FAULT!!!"

Misato, curious now that John was almost making sense, pressed for details. "Okay, where did you go?"

"Well, first we found ourselves outside Osaka, then we got on the train and went through this tunnel and ended up in a place that must have been Kyoto."

He paused, and for a moment the cicadas added their two cents.

"What my esteemed and confused associate is trying to say is, we got a teensy bit lost—" Jared started.

"A teensy bit lost?!" John snapped. "We wandered over half the damn country!"

Jared shrugged. "Teensy, like I said. It's a small country." And like that, all present were exposed to the horror of Jared's singing voice. "It's a small country after all..." The second verse died with a gurgle as he caught the look John was directing at him. Swallowing tentatively, "What?"

John hands wished desperately for some lumber to grasp and demonstrate some laws of motion on Jared's cranium. "And to top all this off, we lost Andy."

"Excuse me? 'Lost' him? He's not exactly a set of car keys, now is he?"

"Well, he... uh... I got nothin'." Jared put in.

"He got lost when he was... independent of us," John offered.

"Meaning you got separated." Misato surmised.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Jared mumbled something under his breath.

"RED ALERT!" Ritsuko shrieked. "Call up the JSDF, they will want to know about this. You two!" She jabbed a finger at the Goons, one of which was unconscious on the floor. John looked innocent, except for the broken and slightly bloody two-by-four in his hands and the large, slowly bleeding lump on Jared's head. "Err... Genoni, grab your friend and follow the nice gentlemen wearing body armor—"

In a swirl of cherry blossom petals, a group of gruff military types in flack jackets faded in around the Goons in an escort formation.

"—and follow me. We've got to get him back."

"That will be a bit of a challenge," said John, hidden by the huge soldiers.

"Explain." Ritsuko demanded.

Lecture Mode was re-engaged. "Stupid here," He indicated Jared. "Came up with the bright idea to stop at the airport we were passing by to ask for directions. He figured that since it was an international airport, somebody would help us with the sign problem. At the very least, I think he was planning to get a book on kanji translations. Not that it would have helped if it was written primarily in kanji. Oh _why_ didn't he just ask for directions... But our intrepid leader became suddenly distracted, to use to the word lightly."

Misato considered strippers, prostitutes, and shiny things, but in a flash of insight, the terrible truth struck her dumb. "Manga."

"Yeah," John said.

_Of all the..._ "But he can't read it."

John's look screamed 'are you a clueless idiot?'

This day just kept getting better. "Where the hell were you when this happened?!"

"I had nothing for breakfast but coffee and Mountain Dew and unlike a _civilized_ country, your bathrooms forsook universally accepted symbols for some distorted star and a box with legs. And mysteries of why females travel in groups aside, what the hell are angry mob paraphenalia doing there?"

Ritsuko snorted, trying to contain her laughter. Misato kept her mirth to a nasty smirk. "So, Andy's at the airport?"

"Not anymore," John said.

"Tell us where you last saw him." Misato ordered.

"Well, there was an F-type military transport on the tarmac at the time. Andy has an interest in military-grade hardware. It's not inconceivable that the building shaking roar was an unscheduled take-off."

"Oh shit," Ritsuko said, eyes widdening.

"That too," John said idly.

Misato wondered briefly where he learned to fly. There'd been no word at all about a crashed transport... "So, assuming he's running around in an F-type, and he's been gone for three hours, where would he be right now?"

John answered before Ritsuko's panicking brain could do the necessary calculation. "Thirty-five thousand feet and descending at a perpendicular angle to the city I would venture."

"WHAT?!" Misato yelled.

Irritatingly, John slipped into Lecture Mode again. "You recall the incident with Unit-02? Andy has always favored the flashy entrance, preferably with as many pyrotechnics as possible. I would suggest you issue a general alarm and lower the buildings."

Ritsuko began screaming. "SCRAMBLE REI!! SHOOT HIM DOWN!! DO SOMETHING!! BRACE FOR IMPACT!!"

_Well, that was new._ Misato wondered, not for the first time, if her friend had any sleep the night before. "Are you done panicking, Rit-chan? We have 22 layers of armor above us. Sure, he'll take out five, ten, twenty, um..." She counted on her fingers for a moment. The armor could take an N2 bomb, but F-type transports... "Oh... Oh my."

And the lone present and conscious American wasn't helping. "Yep, with Andy at the helm, your Eva transport has become a sixty-thousand pound shape charge. Accelerating due to gravity well past Mach 2. Not to mention the N2 reactor powering the sucker. Armored nose--"

"WE GET THE FUCKING POINT!!!" Misato yelled, finding her words echoed perfectly by Ritsuko.

Then Jared sat up. No groaning, half-mumbled threats, or rolling around and clutching his head like a normal person. He just sat right up as if playing possum.

_He wasn't... he couldn't... could he?_ Misato cut that line of thought short.

"Did I miss anything?" Jared asked.

"Telling them about Andy." John's voice out from behind the decidedly nervous armored soldiers.

Jared smiled disarmingly. "Andy? He couldn't hit the ground if he tripped. What's the problem?"

John sighed. "I was about to tell them that. By now Andy has completely botched his crash making a perfect 3-point landing on the airfield."

Jared didn't bat an eyelid. "So business as usual?"

John nodded, though no-one could see him, not that it mattered in the least what he did, because Ritsuko finally started screaming obscenities at them. Misato grumbled and ordered the soldiers to take the Goons to a back room and introduce them to a pipe wrench, leaving the room herself with the pilots in tow.

* * *

An hour later, Ritsuko finally calmed down. Perhaps it was due to some of the opiate John had been drugged with weeks ago, or perhaps she applied some relaxation techniques taught in one of her many, many stress management classes.

Mysteries such as these are stockpiled throughout the universe like unwanted shoes trapped beneath beds.

We may simply never know.

In any case, Andy found the group en route to the Eva cages. His clothes were scorched, his faced covered in soot, but whole and unharmed. Lingering glares from Misato promised that she would rectify that problem soon enough.

Asuka kept no less than four people between herself and The Pervert, and Rei had joined the group, a few steps behind Ritsuko, ignoring John's attempts to engage her in conversation. When the group passed G-Junction, Ritsuko deigned one of the Goons—Jared—to be worthy of answering a pressing question.

"I'm actually curious to know why you three can speak Japanese so well now."

Jared didn't even look in her direction, continuing to jump every third step trying to catch a glimpse of Asuka. "Anime."

"What?"

"Anime," Andy elaborated, then gave John a disgusted look. "Dragonball actually. Z, GT, and the classics."

"All of them?" Asuka said in amazement.

Jared grinned lecherously, as if his face were engineered by a cunning, divine hand in such a way that could not make any other sort of expression. "Of course. I never do anything halfway, come over here, and I'll show you."

In reply, Asuka body-checked Andy into Jared, flattening the pervert against the wall. "Ha!"

Andy brushed the girl off as a grown man would a small, annoying dog, and gave her a very familiar smirk. "That one was free, but you won't use me like that again, puny human."

"Riiiiiight. Anyway, if you three can't read Kanji also, I'll enroll you in Asuka's after-school class. Might as well get four birds with one stone." Ritsuko said, sipping her coffee—which the Goons were beginning to realize was spiked—from a cute neko mug.

"YOU CAN'T!!!" Asuka wailed. When the adults remained silent, she cast a castrating glare at The Pervert. "I won't go then!"

"Then you'll flunk your physics test coming up in a few days.," Ritsuko commented off-hand.

John quit running through his repertoire of pick-up lines in reverse alphabetical order to mumble to himself. "Physics test... physics test... why does that sound familiar?"

The procession came to a halt at that moment, Ritsuko moving up to the large doors blocking their progress. "I was hoping it would never come to this, but—"

"The best laid plans of mice and men are often led astray," John quoted.

Another sip of the spiked coffee. "Riiiiight, well given the length of time that both this and the First Branch have had to prepare the Units for you three, they're pretty much done. I hope you realize what significance this has that—"

"Less yak, more mech!" Andy interrupted at the only volume level he knew; bullhorn.

"Jared, it's your turn to hit him," John said while trying to maneuver closer to Rei.

Jared slapped Andy a few times, but his heart wasn't really in it. "Calm down."

Andy began to foam at the mouth like a Metallica fan. "MECHAAA!"

John gulped down some of Ritsuko's spiked coffee. "This will get uglier the longer you take."

Ritsuko did a double-take, then looked in alarm at her empty hand. John returned the mug with an insincere smile. She swiped her card and pulled out a flashlight as the doors opened.

The room was like a giant, dark freezer. The sound of their footsteps indicated they were on some metal grating, and the deep echo gave testament to the sheer size of the space.

Some ways into the room, Ritsuko abruptly stopped, causing much complaint.

"AHH! PERVERT!"

_SMACK!_

"Ow! What did you do that for?" Shinji immediately complained.

"JARED!!!" Shouted everyone but Rei and the target.

Ritsuko's indicated a spot on the catwalk with her flashlight. "Andy, stay here. Everyone else follow me."

Jared and John were ditched in much the same manner at different parts of the catwalk. Once the Americans were left in the dark—and they were also put into a room with no light—the group exited the room through another door.

The Goons waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And, demonstrating more patience than most slightly insane sufferers of OCD and ADHD normally do... waited.

Finally, John spoke into the darkness. "If this is a prank I'm going to hurt many people."

Andy's voice rang hauntingly through the Eva cage, caressing the spine with a cold, skeletal hand. "Meeeechaaaaaaa..."

"Andy is starting to scare me, John."

"I'm not worried."

"Why?"

"Meeeechaaaaaaa..."

"He has to go through you before he can get to me."

"...If I knew where you were, I'd hurt you."

"I know."

"Meeeechaaaaaaa..."

"Damn. It's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra on the shady side of an iceberg in here."

"We're over the bakelite, it's supposed to be cold."

"Meeeechaaaaaaa..."

"CUT THAT OUT!!!" Jared snarled.

"Ummm... Anytime now."

* * *

Back in the control room, the bridge crew watched the exchange with undisguised cruel amusement.

"Now, Senpai?" Maya asked lazily from her console.

"Not yet, let them sweat a little."

"But it's freezing in there, they can't sweat," Misato argued.

Ritsuko finished off her mug. "Misato, please be quiet, I'm trying to enjoy this fully."

* * *

In the cage, the lights turned on one bank at a time, starting well behind the goons. A symphony orchestra behind a pane of glass began playing _Also Sprach Zarathustra_. John and Jared alternated between watching the far end of the cage get slowly illuminated and shooting worried looks at Andy, who stood in a pool of foaming saliva, his Hawaiian shirt rent by his own hands turned claws. Then the final bank of lights switched on, casting a sparkle to his maniacal eyes.

As the theme to _2001: A Space Odyssey_ built to its climax the three Evas were slowly revealed... at least the heads. There, neck deep in the lake of containment fluids, three heads mounted sinister-looking grins, the pink liquid concealing monstrous armor-clad bodies.

John's voice rang out in the huge room, majestic and commanding. "From the dawn of the eighties, Man has wished to control giant robots. That dream was manifested in cartoons such as _Voltron_, _Transformers_, _Go-bots_, and innumerable anime. But now, my fellow Americans, this dream has come to a fruition that we have only dreamt about dreamily." He wiped away a single tear. "I am so happy to be here right now. Finally..."

"We..." Jared joined in.

"Have..." Both said hormonously.

"MEEEEEECHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Andy screeched.

Ritsuko's mug slipped from her hand and shattered. Dogs everywhere began barking. Car alarms start going off in the city. Gendo's shoe untied and he tripped coming out of the restroom. Psychics in the area screamed in horror. Rei blinked. Chairman Keele shut up for a moment.

And the moon, for an instant, appeared to be blood red.

Jared put one foot forward and thrust a fist into the air, while a nearby fan blew his hair back dramatically, and a small American flag from the gift shop hastily tied to the railing behind him flapped limply. "SUIT UP!!!"

"This bodes of forebodingness," said Ritsuko from the control room.

* * *

By the time the goons were outside of the locker room, Andy had recovered from his dementia and decided to voice things he might call thoughts. "Hmm, I wonder, do we get guns with these things?"

"Calm down, Ed," Jared almost said before catching himself, shooting Andy a dirty look, and reminding himself that thinking of that story would only confuse the readers, and so made no more mention of it, even in his interior monologue. Then he remembered that there was something important he had to do right about now.

Ritsuko's voice cackled through a worn intercom speaker at them a moment later. "Jared, why did you knock Andy out?"

"For the sake of humanity."

John scowled, as he now had to help his comrade drag Andy's limp form into the locker room, where Jared slapped him awake. The three then tore into the plastic wrapping containing their plugsuits, laid out on the bench by some thoughtful technician.

For their part, the Americans were glad to have their own, instead of having to borrow some of Shinji's spares. Jared's was completely black, to the point where it was hard for him to figure out how to get in the damn thing. Andy's was black too, but not completely. The chest section that contained the life-monitors and defibrillator was a deep crimson. The entire thing seemed designed by Mad Max, or at least any of the innumerable bikers from those movies. John's seemed normal in comparison, looking more like a heavily modified fighter pilot jumpsuit. Olive green, primarily, but with black markings.

After activating the seals on the suits, they finally noticed Shinji quietly brooding down the bench. John hopped on the bench and balances his way down to the series hero, sitting next to the younger boy.

"Hey, Ace. What's up?"

"Nothing," the pilot mumbled.

John looked to his friends for help, but found Jared stretching and Andy posing in front of one of the mirrors. He sighed to himself. "Come on, Ace. Buck up."

Shinji looked at the goon. "Why are you calling me that?"

"Because you are the Ace, Shiji. You have more than five notches on your belt. You've stopped several Angels from killing the rest of Humanity."

"I've had help though."

"And Rei and Asuka deserve credit with the assist. But this is the guys' locker room, so you're the man. Wasn't it you that said saving the world was a man's job?"

"When did I say that?"

John smiled. "In about six episodes." Under his breath, "I think..." He caught Shinji giving him a look. "But that's not important. You pilot the biggest chick magnet in the world!"

"Evas are chick magnets?"

John resisted the urge to laugh. Here he had been thinking Shinji just wasn't a fan of attention. Was he actually this dense? "Of course they are. How many babes flocked to you when you let it loose that you were a pilot in class?"

Shinji suddenly found a speck of dust on the floor very interesting. "Well..."

"You should be proud of what you do! When you step out to do battle in the name of Humanity, you are the premiere ass-kicker in the entire world! You don't have to worry about running away! You're a man!"

"I am?"

Another smile graced John's features; a mischievous one. "Of course!" He prompted Shinji to stand as he did, and pointed to his own plugsuit. "You have to be a man to wear these tights!"

* * *

Misato checked her watch for the forty-second time since the goons left the NERV surveillance grid for the locker room. It only annoyed Matoko, who was impulsively counting the number of times she checked the tiny time piece.

"What's taking them so long?" She finally asked.

Matoko shrugged helplessly, but heard a voice from behind them.

"Rit-chan could always turn on the cameras in the locker room and find out."

And that would be Kaji. Wait, what did he say?

"Cameras?" Misato asked, glancing between Ritsuko and Kaji.

Ritsuko tapped at the keyboard next to Motoko, accessing some protected system that wasn't on his regular boards. Figured. A few seconds later, an auxiliary screen popped up, showing a security camera type view of the locker room. Inside, the four boys had donned their plug suits and formed a chorus line of sorts, singing and dancing. Ritsuko pressed another key and sound joined the picture.

"We're men, manly men, we're men in tights, yes! We romp around the city looking fights! We're men, we're men in tiiii-iiights..." Came out of the speakers.

They… weren't terrible, but Motoko couldn't really tell; they were singing in English. Shinji looked a little reluctant as they went through a coordinated step-kick move.

Misato pulled an aspirin bottle out of somewhere a dry-swallowed a half-dozen pills.

Kaji's voice picked up as he started singing the foreign tune as well. "We maaaaaay look like paaansies. But don't get us wrong or else we'll punch out your lights!"

On the screen, the pilots pantomimed punching. Asuka stuck her head into the room, snorted in disgust, and left.

Ritsuko snatched the bottle from Misato and took her own dose to stave off the impending headache. "Kaji, please quit singing along."

"Strange Americans..." Maya muttered.

Motoko could only stare, and wonder if the world was coming to an end as the quartet started another verse.

Then Ritsuko pulled a small remote out of her ever-present lab coat. With the jab of one button, Genoni went into spasms and fell to the floor, gracefully clipping his head on the bench on the way down. Waddell and Mucha slowly drew to a halt, considered their comrade's twitching form, and wisely decided to follow the implicit order.

* * *

Along the hallway to the Eva cages, John and Andy jogged the whole way while humming the launch music from the original Wing Commander. Jared followed at a walking pace, head hung in shame.

"I can die a happy man," Andy said, finally dropping into the entry plug for Unit-04.

"I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to blow some serious shit up," John said, seated in Unit-05's plug.

"Let's kick the tires and light the fires, gentlemen," Jared chimed in with a smirk from the seat of Unit-03's plug.

All three plugs were inserted into the Evangelions and the Americans quickly went through the startup sequence. Within the viewscreens of the new Evas, video windows opened showing Ritsukko, Misato, Rei, Shinji, Asuka, and two of three Americans.

"Ok, I guess since you guys synched with them, you can pilot them." Ritsuko shrugged.

"YOSH!" John shouted.

Misato also shrugged, every millimeter of the movement followed by Jared's eyes. "I suppose we should get the initial walking tests out of the way."

"Walk, my ass!" Andy profanely cut in. "I want things to go BOOM!!!"

The doctor looked at her broken mug. "I don't think that's a good--"

The Commander spoke up. "Let them go to the firing range if they succeed with the basic movements."

Ritsuko suppressed the urge to boggle, wondering what the hell kind of dirt the goons had on him. She muted her feed to the Americans and quickly spoke to the native pilots. "Remember what I said if things went from worse to horrendous?"

Shinji went with a response that's worn on everyone's nerves by now. "I can't harm another pilot!"

"Fine, load the Dummy plug into Unit-01. Rei, Asuka, you know the plan."

"if the evas so much as growl, rip them to shreds..." Rei quoted the doctor word-for-word.

Asuka ontinued the quote with way too much enthusiasm. "And smash the entry plugs since they were obviously infected by Angels!"

Misato raised an eyebrow, Ritsuko offered her a flat stare. The lady in red finally sighed and gave the order the three were waiting for.

"EVA LAUNCH!"

* * *

Tokyo-3, Surface.

The city was evacuated and a general alarm had been raised. The lowered buildings and silent cicadas framed the tense scene.

With a mighty rush of air and a squeal of metal, three elevator-like boxes burst from the earth. The twelve massive bolts on the roofs locked into place and the _front_ doors slid open. Three Evas stumbled out of their restraints into the daylight. Like newborn calves, their first steps were wobbly, and uncertain, but with further movement, the giants and the humans within became more confident.

The original three Evas surfaced a short time later, positioned to triangulate a lot of firepower on the three Americans, should something go wrong. Or should Ritsuko sneeze, really Asuka was looking for any excuse to put several large holes in the chest area of Unit-03.

This would've proven difficult. Per the instructions of the three Americans, each Evangelion was a made-to-order killing machine, capable of dishing out punishment and taking it. Unit-03 was like a sleeker version of Unit-00 but with a skull-like head and long, pointy chin. A layer of AV7 (an experimental transparent descendant of the ALON bulletproof glass) covered the black B-type armor, easily quadrupling the Unit's ability to take a hit and relatively small tungsten protrusions on the knuckles seemed to complement it's hand-to-hand abilities. Most notable about the Eva Jared was piloting, was that the AV7's abnormal refraction and reflective properties rendered the 130' behemoth almost invisible in some places.

Unit-04 was even worse of a target to aim at, not that it was hard to keep track of, as with Unit-03, but simply that it could probably return fire ten-fold if provoked. Andy's mecha was gunmetal gray and sported a double thick B-type chassis. It's shoulder guards, in fact the entire shoulders themselves were larger, the back area was dominated by a mechanical wing system that was currently disabled, thus the wings were folded up. Opposite to the wings in the upper chest was a pair of empty rocket launchers. Empty holsters in the upper thighs that would normally hold machine pistols were a silent image of what this thing could do in combat. And in the wrists, a set of jagged claws not unlike those in the American movie _Predator_. But that system was disabled as well, for safety's sake.

Unit-05 seemed to be the product of John looking over Jared's and Andy's notes. From a purely external view, Unit-05 was physically similar to Unit-04, but predominantly white with black markings and no wing system. Instead, Unit-05 could afford a larger pair of missile launchers that were built into the tall, thick shoulder guards that usually held a simple prog-knife. The arms and legs of 05 were of special interest as they sported a layer of the AV7 armor, making it a challenge to determine the actual location or direction of the appendages.

And to Asuka's surprise none of the new Units were even _plugged in_, yet they had been active and walking for well over ten minutes now.

She wanted one.

A few minutes in, Ritsuko's partially amused voice sounded over the comm. "Ok, we're sending up some pallet guns and some targets, just--"

All three Americans instantly assumed emotionless expressions and droned the same line in perfect monotone synchronization, as if they were quoting an anime they'd seen far, far too many times. "Center the target and pull the switch, we know, we know."

"Ooooookay," Ritsuko muttered.

Shinji looked sheepish.

With another rush of air, the armaments locker emerged from the ground as a series of large paper targets sprang up on a nearby mountain. As one, the Arrivals acquired their Pallet rifles and moved into firing position.

The three went through the monotonous procedure of centering targets and pulling triggers, occasionally trying to liven the action with `a little John Woo.' But it just wasn't working. Jared was getting bored, feeling as if his will was being sapped away by the repetitiveness.

Finally, he snapped.

"That's it! I've had enough of this button pushing, paper shredding, nose-picking rhetoric! We wanna do some DAMAGE!!!"

"With these weapons? I hope you have some kind of plan," John said.

A master of maintaining conversation momentum, Jared plowed ahead. "PLAN?! We don't need a plan for this; we're just out here to cause destruction."

Andy assumed a familiar pose, which didn't look half bad on a one hundred and thirty foot tall robot carrying a rifle. "Gentlemen, POWER UP!"

A short, tense silence enshrouded the battlefield, each member of the three-man team-o-destruction contemplating Andy's suggestion. Finally, a consensus was reached, voiced by a single mind.

"It's worth a shot," said Jared

All three Americans shared a nod and dropped their rifles. They each faced their targets and assumed separate peculiar and, to Asuka's mind, very familiar combat stance.

"KAMEHAME-HA!!!" Jared screamed.

"GALLET GUN FIRE!!!" Andy joined in.

"MAZENKU-HA!!!" John finished.

The Units' AT fields condensed into spherical points before being forced outward as a beam. The simple pop-up targets and the mountains behind them were baptized by fire and simply ceased to exist afterwards.

All three Evas stared at their own hands. Ritsuko's jaw hit the console. Misato's bounced off the floor. Kaji went into seizures. Shinji had a heart attack then and there. Rei's eyebrows shot up, her only way to express such surprise and shock. Gendo spit out his coffee. And just before Asuka fainted, it occured to her that if they could learn the spoken Japanese language watching every single Dragonball, Dragonball Z, and Dragonball GT episode and movie; why couldn't they pick up on some of the tricks?

* * *

End Chapter 4

**A note from the author:** Boy, do I have some explaining to do. I got real impatient and made the first post of this episode without making sure I'd removed some notes/formatting issues, but seconds after I post it, I find some weird formatting problems with the second chapter. But now my choice of separators aren't messed up by . So, with a big sigh, I gave the last four chapters a good look-over, and re-uploaded the set so things are prettier. Sorry if you thought I'd slapped chapter 5 up when you blinked, I'll try to be better about this in the future.

Chapter 5, by the way, is coming along nicely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** Luckily, for the rest of the world, we don't own Eva. If we did, massive gun battles would have been the norm. Since this is non-profit fanfiction, however... heh heh heh...

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 5: Breaking Tradition / Things to do in Tokyo-3 When You're Dead

* * *

The toast popped up out of the toaster and was caught with a skill long ago embedded through routine. Shinji swiped some butter on the hot bread and readied another pair of slices for his roommates.

Asuka all but crawled to the table from her room, her hair still damp from the shower, and her school uniform fresh and clean. Misato soon lurched past the table for the beer in her 'fridge, clad in her usual morning garb. Once three cans were tucked under her arm, she nodded to Pen-Pen as the warm water penguin took over the bathroom for the morning.

"I still can't believe what happened yesterday. That shouldn't even be possible," Asuka said, poking at her food.

This called for at least two beers, Misato thought. Once beer number one was done, she gave a loud whoop and smashed the can against the table top. "A lot of things are impossible, until someone actually does it." She gave her charges a glance, then chucked the empty can in trash, opening the second one with her free hand.

Shinji spoke up, setting calorie-laden plates about the small table. "I don't really see the point of piloting anymore. If those guys have these new Evas, and they don't even need weapons, what's the point of us going out there?"

Asuka made a face at her chopsticks, like they had awoken her from a wonderful dream. "Baka! If a bunch of idiots can pull that kind of stunt off, just think about what a real pilot, like myself, could do."

Misato downed half of her second beer, watching the pilots over the rim the can. One hand held her chopsticks in an instinctive guard position.

"But if they don't need power cables, then why do we have to even go out?" Shinji asked.

Misato bit back a smile. Shinji didn't seem to have lost his mind after being subjected to the goons. He was made of tougher stuff than he realized. "Because, since the Super Solenoid cores have proven to be successful, all of the Evas will be retrofitted with them within the next couple weeks. Pretty soon you will be able to fight without the restrictions of an umbilical cable to slow you down."

Shinji, having eaten half his eggs while Misato explained things, persisted. "But why us?"

Misato finished off the second can in one gulp, smashed it flat, and chucked it into the garbage can perfectly before speaking. "Because NERV still thinks of them as too big of a security risk. They'll be lucky if we ever let them go through a synchronization test again. Especially after they've shown what they can do."

"Well I, for one, will be glad to be rid of them as soon as possible." Asuka said imperiously.

Misato sighed and cracked the third can, taking only a sip. "We can't get rid of them either, they know too much to simply let out into the world, and way too much to simply kill them. We have to keep them close enough to NERV that we can monitor them at all times."

Shinji poked at the last bit of egg on his plate, chasing it around before going in for the kill. "So what is going to happen to them?"

"Right now, the plan is to mothball the new Evas and forget they even exist. As for the boys themselves, we hire them as assistants, gophers, custodians, anything to keep them at NERV, but nothing sensitive, like being pilots." Misato took several bites of her food. Shinji was in top form today. She savored the sensations on her tongue while the pilots digested her explanation, along with their own breakfasts.

Quickly, the morning meal was finished, and the Children left for school Misato lounged around for another hour, then changed into her uniform, and found herself standing outside of her apartment with time to kill and nothing but paperwork waiting at her desk. She glanced at the next door down. Apartment 724. For weeks it had been barred shut against the outside world for an anime marathon of epic... something. Analogies failed her; they kind of did when someone conjured up mystical abilities on her firing range.

She contemplated the paperwork crouched on her desk, waiting to _pounce_ on her the instant she walked into her tiny office.

"Hm..."

And there that door was. So... _inviting_. And her neighbors would be simply _offended_ if she didn't at least stop in to say hello.

Excuses crafted, polished, categorized and filed, Misato tested the 'open' button. The door slid open.

_No lock_, she observed with a smirk.

Her eyes swept into the apartment, long a... she blinked, then blinked again. No mountains of dirty laundry, rows of action figures, smells gaining physical form and assaulting her at the threshold. The apartment was depressingly normal, excepting the slightly over-sized A/V system. She noted that the VCR actually displayed the correct time.

(That stands for Video Cartridge Recorder. In the future, Shinji's DAT player is an anachronism and hence the show's focus on it. VCR units are little bigger than a fridge magnet, and record to solid-state discs the size of a postage stamp, like today's digital camera/music player memory cards. Please don't confuse this device with a VHS deck. _– Ed._)

She stepped inside, marveling at the normalcy. Clean couch. Clean kitchen. Neatly stacked pile of advanced soundproofing.

"Ojamashimasu!" She called out pleasantly.

_Okay, that's unusual, but everything else..._ She looked at the VCR again en route to the kitchen. _Have to ask them to fix mine sometime._

She rounded up some coffee filters and puzzled over the laminated sheet on the counter giving pictorial instructions for brewing the optimal cup of coffee. Quickly, she gathered the filters and dark roast, and within half a dozen minutes, coffee was dripping slowly into the large heated carafe on the counter-top. She began looking for mugs.

_Let's see..._ The big one with an English onomatopoeia for explosions on the side in an eye-gouging font must have been destined for the big one. The tall and... _shapely_ mug with elaborate paintings of barely-clothed women frozen in mid-gyration obviously belonged to the little guy. And in between, a no-frills black mug with English and Japanese kanji reading 'I'm awake, now quit bothering me,' was clearly meant for the cra--er, the middle one. Misato smirked as she pulled out a white cup with blue katakana reading 'Visitor #1' for herself. _They've got taste. Whether it's good or bad..._

The kitchen was the picture of serenity; the goons quietly snoring in their rooms, the coffee aromatically brewing... She poured herself a cup. Three young men waited patiently on the other side of the counter dividing the kitchen from the living room.

Misato looked up as she took her first sip, then spit the coffee all over the counter. "Wha?! How--?! But--! HUH?!"

"Coffee..." Jared said in a singing voice.

"Coffee..." John brought an extra octave to the party.

"Coffee..." Andy rounded out the harmony.

The three fell silent before joining in chorus, "COFFEE..."

Misato didn't let them leave her field of vision while she took a second sip, and savored it.

Each was dressed and relatively awake. Clean too, ready to go out and face a new day. Well, maybe John should pull the comb out of his hair. Jared could probably stand to take the shoe hanging from his ear and put it on his foot. Andy might have to change his shirt from inside-out and backwards to wear it in a more normal fashion... then they would be ready.

"Uh, good morning fellas," Misato said, appraisal of both the goons and their coffee complete.

John mutely snatched the carafe from the counter, poured a full round for himself and his roommates, and slammed back a full cup. Jared chugged from his own mug almost as quickly, smiling as the caffeine was ingested. Andy merely sipped at his before frowning distastefully and fetching the milk and sugar. Everyone watched him return to the counter to mix his brew according to his preferences.

John poured another round for him and Jared. He looked to Andy. As if apologizing for his friend, "He never went to college."

John stole the condiments and carefully adjusted the contents with strict precision. Jared blindly added a splash of milk and a second of sugar to his cup. All three sipped at the same slow leisurely pace now.

_Wait a minute._ "You guys went to college?"

"Yes," said Jared.

Misato frowned. "But you guys can't be more than fourteen. I know in Germany Asuka graduated, but the school system in America works much more slowly."

Andy's eyes widened, and he spoke in the tortured whispers of a man suddenly castrated by a slamming door. "Four... teen? Fourteen?!"

All three looked each other over, eyes narrowed in concentration. Or confusion. Or disgust. Whatever, she wasn't a mind reader. All three eventually shrugged, and John seemed to step easily into the role of spokesman.

"Ummm, Misato, all three of us have seen about two decades go by."

Okay, so the Americans _looked_ like they were twenty…ish. But they were Americans, and you could never tell with them. She'd seen fourteen year old American boys that looked older than the three standing before her. "But you guys can synchronize with the Evas," she pressed, thoughtful. "I though only kids born after Second Impact could do that."

John's delegating glance was almost invisible. Jared stopped enjoying his coffee for a moment to speak. "Well, maybe because we're not even from this universe, we get special treatment. After all, has anyone else been able to do a Kamehameha before?"

Misato shrugged. "No one has ever really tried."

Jared went back to his coffee. John put a finger to get her attention. "Subject change, what--"

"When do we get to pilot those babies again?" Andy trampled into the conversation.

Misato beat back the slowly rising panic. She grasped at something, a fragment of a memory of a tiny report she half-read weeks ago. "Well... The power systems weren't really able to handle an output like that, so the Evas are going to be out of commission for a while."

Time succumbed to horror and slowed to a crawl as a host of expressions dashed across the young man's visage. Never before had the Tactical Commander seen naked intent twist a man's brow like this. She waited, breath rotting in her throat, for a maniacal cackle to burst out of Andy's chest cavity like a razor-toothed animal, clawed hands grasping at the phantoms of his deepest desires. "Hmmm..."

"I know that 'hmmm,' and you'd better stop thinking that, mister." John said in a warning tone. "As I was saying, what happens now?"

_That is a good question,_ Misato pondered.

(That _is_ a good question. – _Ed._)

"Well, I guess when we get to NERV you'll find out." Misato announced.

Jared threw a celebratory fist into the air. "TO NERV!"

* * *

With extraordinary perseverance, Misato had tracked down Ritsuko in a small lab on level twenty-seven. She'd had some time to chew on their comments during her drive to NERV--the goons had disappeared, again, when she offered to drive them. She gave a brief account of their conversation to the doctor, reflecting idly on the fact that the whole thing was probably recorded, on a transcript, and archived in some vault a hundred meters further underground by now.

"They've already been through college?" Ritsuko asked in surprise.

"That's what they said. Or at least, they have had a few years of it. Two of them can make you look like an amateur drinking coffee, that's for sure."

"Hmmm, okay."

No it wasn't. Not to Misato. "Okay? I thought that only kids Shinji's age could pilot Eva!"

Ritsuko gave her a bored look. "And I thought that the artificial S2 core would fail miserably and wipe out the First Branch, but it didn't and they can pilot the new Evas." She sighed. "I'm beginning to think that nothing is impossible anymore."

"But mathematically speaking, nothing is impossible in the first place," Misato said, needling her.

The bored look shifted to a friendly smile propped up with a threat of bodily harm. "No talking about math or science until after 10 a.m. please."

Ritsuko had been using that line since their days in college. But then the doctor pointed at a hand-drawn sign on the wall that repeated the request. A chibi-Ritsuko on the poster shared the original's expression. Whichever technician she had bullied into drawing it had some skill.

"That reminds me. I know that the basic procedure is to shuffle all of the pilots into the same schoolroom, but since the boys aren't technically pilots, not to mention that they're about five years the pilots' senior, I was hoping you knew what we were going to do with them."

"Talk to the Commander about that. They aren't my problem." Ritsuko turned to the console before her and nudged Maya. The woman had been so quiet Misato had completely forgotten she was still in the room. Oh well, no sensitive information was being aired, and she probably had the clearance anyway. "I need those chips now if we're going to meet Ikari's deadline, you know." Ritsuko said to her shadow.

"I'm finishing up right now, senpai," the woman replied with a cheery tone.

The conversation was over. Misato hoped someone else would figure out where to stick the goons when NERV didn't want them outside blowing things up and learning martial arts techniques from videotapes.

* * *

In his office, Gendo Ikari perched upon his chair as would a bird of prey, idly pushing about the question of the day. "It would be too suspicious to just send them to the same class room. What about a higher grade level, with others their own age?"

To one side of the immense desk, the one hewn cold from the bones of murders and polished until madness shown in its black depths, Kozou Fuyutsuki did his level best to impersonate a potted plant. "They would still be a year or two older than the rest of the students."

Gendo reshuffled his fingers, letting them again lace together in such a position that they blocked his mouth from the view of any visitors.

The office was empty.

"Teaching Assistants?" Came from his hidden mouth.

"I don't think so," the Sub-Commander replied.

"Me neither."

"The only records we have on them are barely a month old and based on tests and information they have given us."

"We could easily alter that information, to our needs."

"But then there is their physical age, if not their mental."

"Have them shave everyday."

"I don't think this will work."

"Hire them as personal staff, perhaps."

"And do what?"

"Mop the floors?"

"That would prove difficult."

"We could ask them."

"And they all would choose to be pilots."

Now they'd come full circle. The fundamental problem was that the goons, regardless of sanity, predictability, or controllability, were Americans. Americans did not get cool giant robots _in Japan_. There were rules that had to be upheld.

"It's odd that my own son would rather run off and do God-knows-what but these three strangers had to be removed from their cockpits by the Jaws of Life, kicking and screaming all the way," Gendo said, almost musing.

Kozou decided to air the obvious solution. "Put them in the intelligence division, perhaps. They already seem to know the inner workings of this place."

"And that office is under constant surveillance any way. I like that idea." The audible Evil Smirk in Gendo's voice indicated he wasn't sarcastic about it.

"But do you think it's wise to pay them to be paranoid?" A valid concern, but what's one extra gun in a platoon of armed soldiers?

"Irrelevant. Send in Major Katsuragi and the Arrivals."

Immediately the door silently opened, allowing Misato and the goons to enter. The Americans looked annoyed at having to wait, and all three promptly began humming the _Imperial March_ in perfect unison. Misato, accustomed to both sudden singing from the Americans and the imposing office, stood at ease a half-dozen paces from the desk. The goons obediently lined up next to her at attention, still humming. "Sir?"

Gendo tilted his head slightly, and the glare vanished from his glasses to reveal a glare directed at the goons. "Cut that out. I've decided what to do with you."

"WOO-HOO! We get to be pilots!" Andy declared at rock-concert volume levels.

The goons threw up the horns, performed various disgusting victory dances, exchanged high-fives, chest- and fist-bumps, and finished off with a three-person pyramid that quickly collapsed into a tangled nest of limbs and pained curses. As soon as they regained their feet, all three returned to their original spots, reattached neutral expressions to their faces, and waited patiently for the Commander of NERV to continue.

"No. You'll be joining the--"

"We want to be pilots," Jared interrupted.

"What you want is irrelevant. You'll be part of our intelligence division, you'll have your own office--"

"Each?" John suggested.

"Don't make me laugh. And--"

"We also get to be pilots," Andy said, speaking the with the certainty of someone who looked reality in the face only twice a year, and always ran away screaming.

"No."

Jared had a 'you need to get with the program, dude' air about him as he insisted, "We are going to be pilots."

"No, you will not," Gendo's voice had some steel in it, apparently aiming to maim the smallest goon.

"What about our deal?" John said, his voice carrying the forced casual tone normally heard out of trained killers as they put on a pair of gloves to keep from leaving too many fingerprints around the corpse.

"Deal?" Misato asked.

"The deal has been fulfilled, the Evas were constructed, you got to test them," Gendo said quickly.

"There were clauses as well; we were to be put on the active pilot roster," John continued, glare covering the lenses of his own glasses.

"We have enough pilots."

"And now you have three more."

"This is not negotiable."

John took a step forward, catching Jared's attention, which had been sliding over to Misato's chest, and Andy's attention, which had been sliding over to the desk. "You're damn right about that. We'll accept the position and office in Sector 7, but we also will be placed on the pilots' roster. If you fail to hold up your end to the deal we made, we will follow through with our end of the bargain."

Gendo put his hands flat on his desk, causing Misato and Fuyutsuki to freeze in fear. The Commander was officially _angry_. "Are you threatening me?"

"Of course not, I am merely stating that the deal will be seen through, one way or the other."

The slightest twitch of Gendo's shoulders was the warning anyone got before a trap door opened beneath the goons, triggered by a simple press of Gendo's foot on a hidden button beneath the desk. John, fully prepared for the move, jumped onto the desk. Jared, who had been cataloging every detail of Misato's breathing patterns, and Andy, who had been concocting a number of schemes to smuggle the Commander's desk out of his office while simultaneous pranking the uptight asshole, both dropped into the pit with clueless expressions on their faces.

John didn't move, even when the trap door shut firmly behind him, choosing to remain crouched on the desk like a hunter about to take down prey. "Now Andy and Jared are in the ventilation system, you old fool. But back to the dilemma at hand. If you put us on the active roster, then you only have to pay us as pilots. The intelligence division is paid under the salaries of whatever job they are infiltrating. And as pilots we'll be paid far less than a pure desk job. Financially speaking, it would be more cost effective to let us pilot. Given NERV's tight budget, it's your best option."

To his credit, Gendo didn't flinch. Nor did his hands move. "But how much would that friend of yours cost us in damages?"

"Andy can be distracted, and Jared is easily entertained. Plus, you merely have to take slightly larger cuts from the UN budget, and freeze progress on some of your programs."

Misato found herself echoing the Commander's question. "What programs?"

Ikari turned his flat stare to her, the lights in the office glinting from his glasses. "You are dismissed, Major."

Misato played for information. "What programs?"

"Some highly unethical ones that will not turn out very well," John said, audibly smirking.

"The ends will justify the means," Gendo said in a low voice.

"Not for the ones on my list."

"Sabotage? I would've thought your style to be less violent."

"Not sabotage, but by merely not interfering with your plans, I will doom them to failure. You Dummy Plug system, for example. It eliminates the need for a pilot, true, but it is uncontrollable. You would have a berserk Eva on the loose every time you undid the restraints. And if you were to give the Dummy Plug to an S2 powered Eva? You'd have an unstoppable monster rampaging throughout the city, you'd lose millions of civilians and personnel; and probably several pilots and Evas in the process of taking down just one rogue Eva."

For a moment, Misato forget to suspect this statement of being a red herring. "My God..."

Gendo leaned sideways in his chair to give a shoot a sharp glare at the Major. "Are you still here?"

Misato tried desperately to think of an excuse to stay, or at least stall. She came up blank, saluted, and left fighting down a snarl. She didn't stop herself from shooting at glare at Genoni before the door closed.

Gendo continued as if there had been no interruption. "But if I let you pilot...?"

"We know enough about what is going on to prevent to need for the Dummy Plugs. Put the program in stasis, don't kill Rei's clones, just don't use them, let us be your back-up system. That will free up hundreds of millions in your budget. Enough, I would venture, to pay for any collateral damage on my associates' part."

"You drive a hard bargain."

Andy plummeted from the ceiling at that moment, landing square on his head a foot to the left of the trap door he disappeared into moments ago. Jared follows, landing with a rapid roll and coming up in a crouch. His posture suggested that he lacked a firearm, but could appropriate one if necessary.

"That pit dropped forty feet, how did you end up on the floor above us, let alone unharmed?" Gendo asked the pair.

Andy got to his feet. "Trade secret."

Jared stood and grinned.

"Well?" John prompted.

Gendo scanned the three again, giving John a look of annoyance. "You will be on the pilots' roster by tomorrow. I would assume then that our deal is fulfilled?"

"Time will tell, Commander." John hopped off the desk.

In English, Jared applauded his friend, "You smooth-talking son of a bitch."

"So we keep our Evas?" Andy added, also in English.

John replied likewise, "Not only that but we also have a day job."

A chime sounded through the dark office, then the door opened to allow Ritsuko to breeze in carrying a small metal suitcase. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything." She stepped around the open trapdoor on autopilot. "The wrist-mounted supercomputers are finished, sir." She set the suitcase on the Commander's desk.

Without looking at a clock or watch, "I suppose you are right on time." Gendo thumbed a hidden button on the desk and an old-fashioned desk lamp rose out of the smooth surface. He switched it on and angled the light so that it reflected off his glasses. "Distribute them according to plan."

"You don't have to sound so sinister." Ritsuko said, irritated. "You can just say 'start handing them out,' you know."

Gendo gestured vaguely. "Just do it."

The doctor opened the case and tossed three objects at the boys without looking. All three caught the bulky watches, but just barely.

Before they can complain about NERV pestering over their tardiness, Ritsuko fired up a lecturing voice that put John's to shame. "These are not ordinary watches... But I'm not going to bother going over the complicated internal technology to a bunch of ingrates like you three."

Jared clutched at his chest like a man pierced by an arrow. "You wound me."

She sincerely hoped so. Continuing, "You want the run-down? Fine, but if your brain explodes, I'm not mopping it up. We used diamond chips for the processors. Using the crystal to resonate under a laser beam, these chips are merely clusters of carbon atoms that cut laser beams to act as micro-switches. They use practically no energy and run off molecular nuclear reactors because they use photon and not electron energy, and run at about fifty terahertz. We dropped three of them in there in a molecular storage medium thus, you now are carrying wrist-mounted supercomputers." At this point, a less-disciplined person would have paused to laugh in triumph, but the doctor kept her cool. "You should be able to figure out all of the programs as they are clearly labeled. We've also included a tutorial program that will give you specific information if you so require."

John nodded and smiled politely to indicate he barely understood a word she said. "To paraphrase one of my professors, Andy and I don't know enough technology to understand it, so for us it'll be magic."

"Unenlightened," grunted Jared.

"Hacker," John replied with a dry look.

"Proudly," Jared replied, preening.

"Likewise," John finished with a self-satisfied smile.

Andy was moving his wrist about in unusual ways to look at the superwatch from different angles. "Um, how do we use them?"

Ritsuko held up her own superwatch and pointed at the front. "The big button on the face, you just press it."

All three did so. Above each wrist, two faintly green rectangles digitized into view at an angle to each other like a tiny laptop made of light.

"This is like Washu's laptop in Tenchi Muyo!" John exclaimed.

Ritsuko knew better than to ask what he was talking about. "Right. Anyway, yours are in English, as you can see. Use the 'keyboard' to type and touch the 'screen' for graphic interface. We're working on special cables for using peripherals, I'm also trying to make the screens more inconspicuous, and it has four to the... it has lots of memory."

Jared finished changing his settings, which consisted of just altering the colors of the 'laptop' to a lighter shade of blue. "I feel short-changed being given the layman's lecture."

"Well, Andy is happy." John patted Andy's head as one would a dog. "Aren't ya, boy?"

Andy smacked John in the back of the head. "Don't talk to me like I'm an animal!"

John rubbed at the spot, then raised a pinky to his lips. "I shall call mine... Mini-MAGI!"

Shouting like a man who had just found his best ideas stolen by a Hollywood director, Jared shouted indignantly. "HEY!!!"

Ritsuko watched the display with a perfect poker face. "Actually that's not a bad name for them. If you'll excuse me, I have to get the rest of these mini-MAGI's to the other pilots."

She turned and marched straight for the door.

His thunder comprehensively stolen, John shouted at her retreating form. "But, but, fine!" The doors closed behind her, but John continued. "Be that way! I'm gonna name my three chips then! And it won't be some stupid wise men! I know, I'll name them Moe, Larry, and Curly! Ha!"

Jared considered this. "Wise men to wise guys... I think John's brain broke." He nodded a farewell to the Commander, then literally dragged Andy and John out of the Dark Office.

Outside, "You can't take the dude's wind from his sails. What are you calling your three?"

Jared looked at Andy as if he'd just asked... well, as if he were a sane person who just asked if the sky was pink. "James, Dave, and Ed, obviously."

"I should've known."

"I figure that I should follow John's example and give three aspects that are in perpetual conflict. You?"

"I don't see the point. Maybe Scissors, Paper, and Rock... it doesn't really matter to me. They're computer chips."

"You lack a poet's soul, my friend."

The exchange, and walking, had taken them a good ways down the hall leading to Gendo's office. Naturally, it went nowhere else and featured no doors. Zero foot traffic and complete silence honed the ascetic atmosphere of the hallway to a razor edge.

Just as one would expect of Gendo Ikari. The absence of witnesses was something to be thankful for in the case of Andy and Jared, for no-one else was around to see John when the two finished their exchange.

John was chibified.

"AAAAAAHHH!!!" Jared and Andy screamed.

The tiny, super-deformed John quit working himself into a frenzy over Ritsuko's attitude and looked at them in surprise. "Why are you yelling?"

If anything, the normal voice was even creepier than if it had been an octave higher.

"He's… he's… chibi… and…" Andy began gibbering in abject terror.

Far better inoculated than his comrade, Jared finished with the dreaded word, "Kawaii…"

"Cute? Who's cute?" The chibi-John said, cutely confused.

The first door at the end of the hallway was a bathroom, unsurprisingly. SD-John waddled inside and climbed onto a sink, grumbling about how Ikari had to mess with the plumbing as some sort extended mind-game. Then he looked in the mirror. Paddle legs and arms with no visible digits. Eyes a third of his entire head. The standard issue Japanese wild-take.

John did the only thing that logically followed such an observation, he fainted. But this was after he shrieked, shattering the mirror with the sheer volume, hovering in the air with his arms and legs waving faster than a hummingbird's wings. Then after sustaining flight for about a minute, screaming all the way, he finally passed out. Jared and Andy quickly gathered him up, wrapped Andy's jacket around their associate and hauled him like a sack of potatoes back to their apartment. They'd had enough of NERV for that morning.

* * *

An afternoon of shopping for basic supplies behind them, Jared and Andy reentered their apartment with arm-loads of grocery bags, which they deposited on the counter. A flipper of an arm waved from the couch in greeting.

"Hey John, still chibi?" Jared asked.

Channel surfing to the whims of his Y chromosome, "Yeah."

Both came into the living room. Andy eyed the younger man, and more specifically the device in his 'hand.' "Um, John? If you don't have any fingers, how are you using the remote?"

All three looked at the multi-device remote control that appears glued to SD-John's hand. He pointed the remote at the TV, and numbers appears on screen, then the channel changed.

Shrugging cutely, "Hell if I know."

"Weird," Jared said. "Anyway, Andy and I may have figured out how to get you back to normal. Remember that Tiny Toons episode where Plucky turns into a giant eyeball? He had to calm down to end the wild-take."

SD-John assumed a cute widdle Lotus position and chanted, "I am calm. I am the Zen master. My spirit is at peace."

"Riiiiight," Andy offered in a skeptical tone.

"Maybe if you forgave Ritsuko for stealing the name you came up with?" Jared suggested.

"The Earth will burn before I do that." He dropped out of his 'meditating' posture to sit on the couch. "On a lighter side, I was experimenting, and I discovered that the physics of anime are not too far off from the physics of cartoons."

"How so?"

SD-John stood on the cushion, looked up, and walked off of the couch. He hovered in air until he looked down, then he fell flat on his face. He went into a cute lil' lecture mode. "I've been trying a bunch of other things. I've managed a Demon-head mode, though in this form, it's not much. I can sweat-drop, I can do all of the other takes, and when the girl across the street was coming out of the shower and her towel dropped, my nose bled."

"You little--" Jared started with a snarl.

"It was for the sake of science, so don't interrupt. And I've even been able to access multiple sub-spaces for random items. Observe."

He reached behind his back, then with a yell leapt at Andy with a proportional 2X4. Little bigger than a matchstick. The 'board' came down and hit Andy's head, doing no damage to Andy or itself.

SD-John landed and pouted adorably. "Curse this tiny kawaii body. I have not the strength to smite my enemies."

"Whatever. So, I guess that means that Andy and I could do something similar, right?"

"It takes practice, grasshopper. You must become the emotion."

"Well I'd rather not be stuck being a foot high for the rest of my days, thankyouverymuch."

SD-John made faces at Jared.

"Stop that, you're scaring me."

Andy looked towards the door. "Jared and I were going to do some experiments of our own on the roof."

"In other words, you and him are going to see if you can emulate the Evas and fire off a Kamehameha."

"Well, everyone knows that the Final Flash is superior to the Kamehameha."

Jared nodded to the door, his voice challenging, "I'd like to see that."

Both left, glaring at one another. SD-John grumbled as he put the groceries away, cursing up a storm trying to fill the upper cupboards, vows vengeance upon completion, and hurries to the roof, arms and legs flapping like a hummingbird's the entire way.

However, once outside, SD-John collided with someone. A rant about how when one imitates corporate America and walks all over the little people, they should at least apologize, died on his lips as he realized that his new height gave him a prime angle to look up Asuka's dress. So, instead of a pithy comment, out came a rather stupid grin.

"EEEEEEK! PERVERT!"

SD-John's lack of mass allowed Asuka's Righteous Fury Slap to propel him down the hall. The redhead stormed after him in pursuit.

"I am sick of every one of you being a pervert!"

John stumbled to his feet, rubbing at the hand-print on his check. Then he stared at his hand with all five fingers now discrete appendages. Unfortunately, he realized that he was no longer super-deformed just as Asuka came into range, and swept her up into a hug of celebration, topping this off with a kiss.

"rrrRRRRRRAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!"

Now that realization set in, John had time for only one thought: _This is going to cost me._

Then there was darkness.

The sound of an impact, like a moon destroying a helpless planet.

One of the building's exterior walls bulged out in the shape of an upside-down John.

Back inside, John was up and scrambling for the stairway, Asuka in hot pursuit, murder in her eyes.

* * *

John burst through the roof access door, out of breath. Fatigue vanishing an instant later as he whipped out a hammer and some boards from sub-space, and apparently without any of the metal objects, nailed the boards to the door frame. The youngest, though arguably most sane, arrival looked around frantically, and lacking the aforementioned sanity, retrieved a large wooden mallet from subspace. As the first pounding from Asuka hit the boards, John set himself up to deliver an ambushing blow, the look of a cornered rat ready to fight the tiger on his face.

Andy and Jared shook off small sweat drops.

"Umm, John?" Jared said tentatively.

Asuka's second impact caused the boards to flex and creak ominously. The sweat drops multiplied.

"I don't think John is in control of his mental faculties right now," Andy said.

"He's looking normal though."

All of the boards rattled at the next impact. Several of them cracked.

"You mean the foaming mouth, the glazed eyes, and the large weapon in his hands poised to deliver a killing blow?"

"I did mean that he's not chibified any more." He looked more closely at the panicking American. "But now that you mention it..."

The final hit splintered the boards, all of which fell to the wayside as Asuka stomped out into the light. Jared put seven and five together and moved to intercept John's ambush. Shoving the object of his obsession out of the way, he took the mallet full on the head. Both John and Jared froze in mid-air before a bump the size of a daikon grew out of Jared's head and dislodged John.

John blinked. Jared eyes were swamped with tears of pain. "That... really hurt."

Unsure if Jared is even human, Asuka gives pause, even backs away.

John also backs away, "Well, I guess that evens things up. I clean up your mess, I get attacked by Asuka, I hit you with a large hammer, Asuka owes you for saving her life."

"Sounds fair," said Andy.

"I DO NOT OWE HIM!!!" Asuka added her two cents.

Jared had a large bandage on his injury, despite no body actually putting it there. "You're learning," he said to John.

Asuka turned her nose up a Genoni, then considered the other two Americans. "...Why are you two on the roof?"

"I almost forgot." Andy reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of microwave popcorn still in its wrapper.

Jared and John became still. A dramatic wind rose to the occasion.

"Wha--"

"Silence, wench!" John ordered.

Asuka decked him. It's kind of her signature move.

"That one was free," John said in his best 'Vegeta' voice, rubbing the red spot on his jaw.

Ignoring the deep, multi-layered interplay, Jared walked up to Andy, who handed him the bag of popcorn as a retainer might hand his lord a tanto to commit seppuku. With ritual precision, Jared released the bag from its plastic confines. In measured steps, he made his way to John, who accepted the bag and ran off to pop it.

* * *

Jared returned to the far end of the roof to face Andy, the two motionless, staring at each other. Asuka quickly grew bored with figuring out what was going on, and started demanding answers. Neither answered, or so much as blinked, even when she walked up and stood in front of each of them and questioned them at pavement-cracking volume. After a while, a while after she had shifted from 'question' to 'glare,' John returned bearing a steaming bowl of delicious popcorn.

He stood there. Asuka threw him a look, and noticed he was silently waved for her to move away from the other two and stand next to him.

Angry at being treated like a kid, but too curious not to follow his suggestion, she retreated.

He sat in a lotus position, cradling the bowl with his legs. He carefully selected a piece of the white fluff and held it up, bowing his head to his comrades. He tossed the first piece into the air, adjusting for wind, and snapped it up like a rattlesnake. Jared and Andy slid into combat stances and dashed at each other.

Apparently, some kind of rite had been completed.

Asuka watched the combat for a minute, stealing the occasional piece of popcorn. Andy took the lead with a string of simple combos that Jared deflected and dodged with fancy footwork. The shorter lad then began fighting back with some low kicks and long arcing punches. Andy took a few good ones before he realized he actually had to block Jared's attacks. Then he started experimenting with actually exchanging blows, one after the other. Asuka quickly came to the conclusion that Jared must have taught boxing at some point in his past, as the match struck her more as training Andy and less actually trying to beat one another to a bloody pulp. Okay, so they were sparring. The popcorn was a mystery. A tasty, irresistible mystery. "Explain," she said to John, gesturing at the popcorn bowl with a handful of the stuff.

"When one goes to the movies, they tend to eat popcorn, correct?"

The current handful was quickly depleted, then replenished. "Okay."

"And popcorn is sold and consumed at major sporting events as well, right?"

Another refill commenced. "Yes..."

"Both movies and sporting events are entertaining. Thus, it would follow to say that most entertaining events have popcorn being consumed by its spectators."

Hand dipped into bowl. "I'll give you that."

"Well, what could be more entertaining that watching Jared and Andy beating the crap out of each other? Besides beating the crap out of Jared yourself, of course."

They were sparring. He was right--not that she would admit that--watching one of them really take a beating would be entertaining. But, watching Mucha use osmosis to increase his fighting ability wasn't bad as far as entertainment went. She appropriated another handful of the excellent popcorn. "Of course."

"We just take it a step farther, and make popcorn the symbolic equivalent of throwing down one's gloves. We've developed this entire ritual for the simple purpose of declaring war on each other."

Did he even realize they were sparring? She nabbed another handful and decided he didn't. _Amateur._ "So... that's it?"

"Well, actually, this is the first time we've done the ritual. But I'm glad it turned out so nice."

_Fucking otaku_. She didn't say aloud, snatching another handful. _Almost empty..._

The sparring duo broke off at that moment. Both were winded and equally bruised up. Jared dropped into a Kamehameha stance. Andy stood tall and proud, looking like... well, looking ridiculous, and spread his arms out in preparation for a Final Flash.

Then the moron mating call commenced.

"KAME..."

"rrrrrrRRRRRRRRRGGGGGG..."

"HAME..."

"RRRRRRRRAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH..."

The smaller one thrust his hands together at Andy. "HA!"

The tall one did likewise. "FINAL FLASH!"

Both expected something to happen. Nothing did, as Asuka _knew_ it would. Or wouldn't, whatever the case.

A nice breeze swept over the roof, temporarily relieving them of the stifling heat of the massive building-wide air conditioning unit. The moronic duo didn't move, even when Asuka cast her best 'you should be ashamed of yourselves' glare at them.

"Did you guys really think that it would work?" John said absently.

"Baka." Asuka said smugly, swiping the very last bit of popped corn.

Jared and Andy lowered their hands, looking thoughtful instead of sheepish, and dusted themselves off.

"What's for dinner?" Asked Andy.

John ignored him, reaching into the empty bowl and grasping only hard kernels. He looked down. "HEY!"

* * *

The next morning, Misato again let herself into the boys' apartment, taking in the familiar sights and calling to them in a sing-song voice like an action move hero temping fate. "Guys, time to wake up!"

Silence. She frowned, tried knocking on the bedroom doors, tugged at them. All locked. No response but the occasional faint snore.

_So much for the Japanese way._ She cast her gaze to the kitchen.

In moments, she was ready to make coffee. Curiously, the detailed instructions from before had been replaced with something even simpler. The coffee appeared in pre-measured bags for placement into each cup. The kettle was pre-programmed and curiously, set up to turn on once the door opened. This left Misato to do nothing but ponder the changes and wait for the _ding_.

Soon, all was ready. She lifted the kettle in one hand. The room was empty. The cups were set with filters, waiting. She poured. As the first of many drops to come touched the ceramic cylinder, all three Americans licked their lips, waiting patiently for their own cups to be filled.

_Oooooookay. I think I get it now._ She handed out the mugs. "Good morning, guys."

Both John and Jared slammed back their first mug of caffeine and said, "Good morning Misato-san."

Andy held his cup like a coveted treasure and mumbled something under his breath.

"Andy says 'hi'," said John.

Jared handed John the cream and sugar. "Um, Misato-san, what time are we supposed to be at work?"

"Intel division day shift starts at 0300 hours, I think."

Andy spat his mouthful of coffee onto the counter, shooting Misato a glare as if she had just promised to deliver his family to him in five-pounded pieces, packaged individually.

John sipped at his second mug, glancing at Andy's spit-take. "Sorry for them."

"Aren't you guys now part of the intelligence division day shift?"

"Actually we never had a chance to get our assignment yesterday."

Jared and Andy shot John a 'don't tell her!' look.

_Interesting._ "Well, I'm sure they're looking for you."

Andy finished his coffee and stretched. It was then apparent that in his rush to get to the counter, he put his underwear on after he put his pants on. John and Jared were about to laugh, but then Jared noticed the socks on his hands and John had to pull the toothbrush from his ear.

Fortunately, Misato had seen much worse rooming with Ritsuko and Kaji in college, otherwise she would have had a good laugh at the boys' expense.

* * *

After they made themselves presentable, chased Misato out of the kitchen for suggesting she make breakfast, firmly denied her offer for a ride to work and waved the luscious tactical commander goodbye...

They went to the bathroom. It wasn't a large space, but it was clean and functional. All in all, a nice place to get rid of Misato's "cooking."

"I can't believe the woman can mess up making a cup of coffee with preprocessed filter bags!" John said after taking his turn praying to the porcelain gods.

"I'm glad I put away the sophisticated equipment. She might have killed us given enough chances." Jared said, rubbing his own stomach and looking very green. "So... what's on the agenda?"

John wiped his mouth. "Well, since we have the excuse of not knowing when our shift is, we can take our time in going to NERV. I'll lead the way, of course."

"I don't think so."

"You got lost going two blocks to the grocery store, Andy told me the whole story of why it took you the entire afternoon to get back."

Defensively, "I was taking the scenic route!"

"That's always your excuse!" John rose to his feet, then looked greener, sat down and held his head in his hands.

"Keep it down!" Andy yelled from the adjacent room.

John finally got unsteadily to his feet, straightened out his shirt, and stumbled to the door. "We do face a dilemma, gentlemen."

"Which one? The Hedgehog one?"

"No. As members of Intel, Ikari, Katsuragi, Akagi, and Fuyutsuki will all be wanting our advice, trying to tap into our vast knowledge of Eva from watching way too much of it. What do we tell them?"

"I say we just mess with their minds."

"Why did I even bother?" John asked himself.

Andy poked his head into the bathroom. He'd changed into a fresh shirt, this one in eye-popping blue. "Yeah... good idea."

The three made their way out to the kitchenette area, John musing. "I know that, but I'm questioning more in regards to, for example, interfering with key plot points."

Jared stared at the wall while he spoke. "We all know how this is going to play out if we do nothing. I say that we do what we can to keep this world in its original fan-service filled, joke cracking, Angel smashing state!" He jumped on the kitchen table. "WHO'S WITH ME?!"

John and Andy shrugged.

* * *

Outside, the weather is okay. Hot as a griddle, but the 'heroes' of this story were raised in a desert. The heat doesn't bother them.

The humidity, on the other hand...

"Are we there yet? My shirt is now stuck to my back," Complained Andy.

"Ew." Jared commented.

John glanced up at a display for a video store. A digital clock set below it read 12:54. "A real man can admit when he's lost."

"No, a real man would whip out a large automatic weapon and start demanding directions from the frightened populace." Andy made 'gun hands' to hammer is point home.

"Shut up, Ed." John blinked. "A-Andy! Shut up, Andy!" Grabbed his head. "You're Andy, not Ed!"

The other two gave John the 'we've lost him, doctor' look.

"So admit it," Jared said.

"Admit what?" John asked.

Jared smiled. "That we're lost, and that it's your fault,"

While the two begin the customary bickering, Andy pulled up a city map on his Mini-MAGI. After memorizing the directions, he turned to his friends to berate their idiocy. But a large marquee distracted him. "Isn't that the kanji for Shining Glorious Super Magical Girl Ayane R VIII?"

Jared stopped cursing John's ancestors and looked at the kanji in question. "Anime... on the big screen..." He wiped absently at the drool suddenly leaving his open mouth.

Andy ran up to the theater's ticket booth to bother the attendant. "Quick, what movie is playing here?"

"Shining Glorious Super Magical Girl Ayane R VIII, can't you read?"

"Obviously not, three tickets please."

"I'm not going," John said suddenly.

Jared grabbed one arm. "You're going."

Andy finished buying the tickets and moved to help Jared. John broke free of their grip once they were inside the lobby, startling the other patrons. "Fine! But we need to get a few rules straight. No going 'Lost Movie-Goer' in there. No spazzing out like a complete otaku. And no..." Both of his comrades were already inside of the theater. "Well, shit."

A tumbleweed rolled by, completely ignored. John rushed in to ward off any disasters.

* * *

End Chapter 5

**A note from the author:** Oh no, will our heroes survive this deadly encounter? What will NERV do know that they're about to have their future laid out for them by three uppity Americans? When will they finally be called 'goons'? Will the author ever release anything on time?! And these questions and more, will probably not be answered in... the next chapter of Goonvangelion!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **It's not ours! We just love the original work! Gainix owns it, not us! This is not-for-profit work!

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 6: A Vacation Wrapped in an Excursion Baked in a Taco / BUS DRIVER

* * *

At NERV, Misato and Ritsuko were watching the Americans' every move from the comfort of the Commander Center.

"Where are they?" Misato asked, looking at the tiny map displayed before here.

Ritsuko looked up from checking the local theater schedule on her terminal and took a deep breath. "Watching Shining Glorious Super Magical Girl Ayane R VIII."

Like a five-year-old in the grips of a sugar buzz, "That came out?!"

"Yesterday," Ritsuko said, watching Misato all but vibrate in her chair with excitement.

"I'll have to get tickets later." Misato promised herself. Then she blinked. Work. Right. Focus. "How do you know where they are?"

Ritsuko raised a hand to the computer screen, indicating three pulsing dots. The dots are in a theater on the other side of the city. She points to another screen, where three more are in Shinji's high school, room 2-F.

"How?" Misato asked.

Ritsuko replied with a yawn. "Tracking beacons in the Mini-MAGI's. You think I'm going to let them walk around my city without a leash up their ass?"

The doctor fished a remote control out of her lab coat. Three large buttons with the Americans' names clearly labeled are centered on the face, and beneath are small buttons with the rest of the pilots' names. Ritsuko flipped a switch on the console near her. The sounds from the Arrivals' location came through along with their voices. With a wicked grin, Ritsuko pushed the three buttons in seemingly random order. Yelps of pain came over the speakers, suspiciously to the tune of 'Fly Me to the Moon.' After the first verse, however, the shouts stop.

Ritsuko frowned at her remote as one would upon seeing a fly enter one's house. "Hmmm, either the battery ran out, or they're unconscious, or dead, or have taken the Mini-MAGI's off."

"Well, I hope you're happy now, they'll never wear those things again!" Misato cried in alarm.

Ritsuko did not roll her eyes, because she was a respected scientist and was simply above such immature retorts. "Please, they have the collective attention span of a hyperactive terrier."

"But terriers can be house-trained," Misato pointed out.

* * *

After the ninety-minute movie finished and Andy successfully led them to the main entrance, then down into the Central Dogma, where...

"You're supposed to report to Sector 7, now get out of my face." Ritsuko said in annoyance.

John leaned around Ritsuko to see a first person shooter paused on her screen. "We will report to our section as soon as one thing is cleared up."

"What?"

"My Eva, I specifically requested an urban camouflage scheme to it. Yet it is white." He pulled out a clipboard with some documents on it. "Sign on the line indicated below, please."

Andy pulled out his own clipboard. "And mine was supposed to be shiny chrome, not some drab gunmetal gray."

Jared ignored the fermenting argument, throwing a few random kicks in the air as if loosening up for a martial arts match.

Ritsuko smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. "If you want a paint job, you'll have to defeat Bob, here, to get it."

A giant sumo wrestler walked into the room.

No one had to ask who this 'Bob' person might be.

"Is this in the manual?" John said.

"No, but it is fun." The smile grew wider.

Andy grumbled to himself. Jared finished his warm-ups and went for a jog.

"I AM BOB," thundered the walking mountain.

John took in the sight. "Hi, Bob."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"Can you turn down the volume?"

"WHAT?"

Ritsuko stepped in like a ringmaster, talking to Bob while gesturing to indicate what she meant as she spoke to the nearly seven-foot-tall wrestler. "Bob, these two want a new paint job for their Evas."

"TO HELL WITH THAT, THOSE FUCKERS ARE HUGE!"

"He must work with the construction crew," John finally deduced, rubbing at an imaginary beard.

Grinning wickedly, Ritsuko swung the red cloth in front of the bulls. "Bob, I told them if they beat you, I'd sign the order to paint the Evas."

"John, you first," Andy bravely declared.

"OH, NOW I GET IT. I WILL CRUSH YOU!!!"

"Definitely your turn, dude."

John was anything but unfamiliar with wrestling moves, but those were of the 'fake' American variety. Ten seconds later he was praying that he could find all of his teeth before the platypus stopped dancing.

"Your turn, Andy," Ritsuko said, her grin now positively reeking of evil.

* * *

Some time later, a crowd had gathered in Central Dogma, where the Fight of the Day was underway.

"I'm still taking bets, if anyone is interested." And Ritsuko was still taking bets, if anyone was interested.

Kaji felt he should be, having just arrived. "What's going on?"

"The boys wanted some decorative adjustments to their Evas. I said that I'd give my signature, only if they defeated Bob."

Kaji gave her a look normally reserved for people who... okay, for Andy whenever he's within a country klick of any explosives. "Bob, the former Yokozuna sumo wrestler, Bob? Bob, 'he's not a person, he's a place,' Bob?"

"The very same."

"You have an evil side, you know that Rit-chan?"

Ritsuko shrugged. "Yes. Bets are still open, this is round... twenty I think."

"Put me down for four thousand yen on the boys. What's this decorative adjustment? Some sort of new paint job?"

"John wants an urban camouflage scheme. Which is reasonable, and we were going to do it anyway. But the other one... He wants his Eva to be chrome-plated."

Kaji laughed. "Typical American boy and his toy."

"Thus, I really don't think it to be too unreasonable to require some sort of trade."

"Like paying in blood?" Kaji asked.

Ritsuko snapped her fingers. "Now you have it."

"Where is John? I just see Andy getting the pounding."

"John ran off a while ago, I would guess he gave up."

Indeed, while Jared and John are off... who knows? Andy continues to take an epic beating from Bob. The assembled NERV staffers admire (and truth be told, also fear) his resiliency. After scraping himself off of the ground with a comically over-sized spatula that would look suspiciously familiar to the audience if this story were an anime, Andy tilts his head to the side. Then the ground begins to shake, the regular thump-thump-thump of an approaching dinosaur, or...

The ceiling is suddenly torn off of the room. Unit-05's glowing red eyes lit up through the dust kicked up by its impromptu remodeling. Through the gaping hole, the assembled crowd can see the trail of destruction leading from the pyramid which contains Central Dogma all the way across the floor of the Geofront to the Eva launch tube access near the southern wall.

"Who the _fuck_ let him into an Evangelion?!" Screamed Misato.

Bob also screamed, but more like a ten-year-old girl having a panic attack. He also elected to run away as fast as his mass would allow. Since the doors sealed shut once the roof caved in, his exit path went between the Eva's legs.

"How did you activate that thing?!" Demanded the Tactical Commander, all of five foot two and armed with a pistol, facing down a one hundred and twenty-five foot tall armor-plated weapon of war.

The massive beast shrugged. John's voice came on over the external speakers. "We're self-insert authors, we have the powers to do such things."

At that moment, Misato seriously considered hauling him out of the plug with her bare hands and pistol-whipping him until the stupid came out.

With slow, deliberate steps, Unit-05 turned away from the ruined Command Center and stalked after the sumo. John spoke through the external speakers in a gloating voice. "How about that paint job now, Bob?" He laughed maniacally as the Unit's wrist claws extended.

Eventually, Misato was given some beer and calmed down. Somewhat. Ritsuko signed off on the paint jobs. Kaji collected his winnings with a grin. The Commander let John chase Bob around the Geofront for close to a half hour before ordering the Eva back to its cage. And as an afterthought, Ritsuko ordered the tech with the giant spatula to scrape Andy off of the wall and cart him to medical.

En route, Andy was heard mumbling to himself, clearly delirious from the beating. "Did I win?"

* * *

Section Seven was NERV's own little Ministry of Disinformation, an unofficial title detested by its chief, Ikki Yamanaki. Yamanaki was proud of his post and the accomplishments of his division, and it bothered him not in the least that his great successes were all state secrets. He was by nature a kind, patient man. Married to his job but sleeping with an afternoon game of golf on the side. His frustrations were cast off among rolling green hills and tiny white balls.

Okay, I don't understand the hobby, but to each their own.

Now, however, Ikki Yamanaki had been handed the 'Goons.' Like the unofficial title of his Section, the Goon had been christened not by his own will but by the antics of the lowly technicians that greased the great cogs of NERV. The goons were trouble. They caused trouble, they attracted trouble, and if they were pricked, Yamanaki was beginning to suspect that trouble itself would bubble forth as liquid pitch from the punctured skin of a screaming, damned soul wearing a flesh suit. When they showed up for work, they asked if they had found the Ministry of Confusion, then laughed and muttered something about two flowers to themselves.

The business of Section Seven was to spy and be spied upon. The goons were to do none of the former and do a whole lot of the later. If Yamanaki could convince them not to blow up NERV, all the better. He figured he would start off with a little drill instructor impersonation.

"--smashed through the main control room, ruined four launch tubes and forty access hatches! I don't care if the Commander himself let you tear up the place, you're fixing it! And while we're on the topic--"

As far the goons were concerned, the Chief's yelling was a background murmur. He really needed to take lessons from some of their high school teachers, who weren't above using medieval weapons to keep the students focused.

(That's not hyperbole, by the way. - _Ed._)

John's thoughts went something like this: It's not like they said I had to actually fight with my body. I should be praised for my ingenuity!

Andy had been doped up on the same drugs John got a taste of just after arrival: ...Oooh, I see the sounds of the music...

Jared, who had gotten lost in the Geofront and was nearly turned into street pizza by Unit-05's feet, was still in Martial Arts Master Mode: Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.

As the Chief wrapped up his tirade, the goons studiously ignored him. "--Bob in traction for weeks! Now what do you have to say for yourselves?!"

Dead silence greeted Yamanaki. "Hello?!" He finally threw the pen in his hand at Jared, who kicked it back at him automatically. The pen missed the Chief's cheek by a millimeter and embedded itself in the wall behind him.

Jared blinked, realizing his foot was still raised in the follow through, lowered it, considered his fuming boss, and nudged John and Andy. The three turned around and huddled together, whispering to each other for several minutes.

Yamanaki counted slowly to ten, breathing deeply.

Finally the trio finished and faced him in a row again, all standing at attention. Jared stepped forward, the elected spokesman. "So?"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT WE AGREED ON!" John exploded at him figuratively.

"AND YOU'RE NOT A KOALA BEAR, YOU FAKER!" Andy put in.

Jared and John looked mildly amused at Andy's comment, then actually looked at their fuming boss. John actually leaned in for a closer look at his forehead. "You could jump a dirt bike off those veins."

Then Andy took off running.

Not from the Chief. No, his terror was spawned by the stampede of Holsteins running on the ceiling and the rivers of black bubbling pitch flooding the floor. He dove through the nearest ventilation grate, Jared and John hot on his heels. Both assumed his cries of 'mad cows,' was some kind of made-up-on-the-spot codeword.

"Well, shit," remarked the Chief.

* * *

An hour later, the goons reemerged from the same ventilation grate to find the room missing one screaming section chief.

Jared was so pleased he patted Andy on the back. "Good directional skills, dude."

"This isn't Dairy Queen!" Andy exclaimed in agreement.

Smile cracking and flaking around the edges, Jared continued to pat Andy and leaned over to whisper a question to John. "He will be alright, won't he?"

"I'd say give him another twenty minutes and keep him away from anything sharp or heavy."

Jared smiled, automatically pulling his hand back when Andy snapped at it. "Good, time to break in our new office!"

John frowned. "Who died and made you king? As, arguably, the most sane of us three, _I_ should be in charge."

"John, you need style to be able to rule with an iron fist."

"Jared, you have neither an iron fist, nor style."

Both growled at each other and started fighting.

* * *

Finding their office was a trivial task, as it was very difficult to get lost when your commanding officer is screaming directions at you over your wrist-mounted communicator-slash-computer thingy, wedging them in between long strings of profanities.

Once they were inside, the trio combed the place like a pack of squirrels on LSD. The office was a flat olive green cube no more than four meters on a side. A single large ventilation grate was off to one side of the ceiling, and three tiny desks were set about two of the four walls. The 'bare' wall featured a small closet door towards the corner opposite the desks.

Since the room was bare and the desks were without ornamentation, chairs, pens, or candy wrappers, the goons set to work. Andy littered his desk with candy wrappers; Jared deposited a year's supply of pens on his, and John bemoaned the monolithic NERV bureaucracy that left him chair-less.

Then he found a small manual in the top drawer of his desk.

This was no ordinary operations manual. Not long after Gendo decided to put the goons into the service of NERV, a strange conversation was held within his own ominous office. The interesting bits went something like this:

Gendo, holding up the aforementioned manual, would say, "And you've taken into account everything that they could do?"

Ritsuko, looking haggard, would nod and reply, "I'm a scientist, not a behavioral psychologist. But I tried to cover the most likely problems."

John was now reading aloud the results of this conversation.

"There is no using aircraft carriers as surfboards, nor using flat-bed trailers as roller-skates."

"Darn, that's a pretty good idea," Jared said.

"No victory celebrations after a battle, especially no doing the 'bull dance' with the Lance of Longenis, nor 'spiking' an N2 mine."

"But what else is there?" Andy asked.

John pressed on. "We also are not allowed to use our Evas when we are told to 'take it outside'."

"But, where's the fun in that?"

"And no roasting hot dogs over a burning Angel's remains..."

"NOOO!" Andy cried to the heavens.

"They get worse. We aren't allowed to install hidden cameras in the women's locker room and shower area."

"Well, that rule's a week late. The cameras are already in place," said Jared.

"We aren't allowed to put bumper stickers or stamp our 'kills' on our Evas."

"Killjoys," Jared and Andy echoed one another.

"The manual specifically prohibits the release of EVA-sized ki blasts within or in the direction of the city..."

Andy finally lunged at John. "Gimmie that! ...Wait a minute... this is a MENU!"

"He'll be ok." John tried to reassure Jared. He then snatched the manual back from Andy and continued to read. "We can't climb the skyscrapers, banging our chests and swatting at passenger jets."

"WHAT?!" Andy shouted.

"We aren't allowed to post pictures of the female staff, especially Ritsuko or Misato, on the Internet. It states that they will have permission to shoot us if we do."

Jared sighed, defeated. "I better take down the web page then."

"We also can't make posters making fun of the injured pilots and hang them in the infirmary."

"You mean I can't hang that "If you're reading this, you just got your ass kicked" poster I was making?" Jared complained.

"You know guys, what disturbs me isn't the rules," John said, looking at the manual.

"Then what?"

"It's that we may be the most emotionally stable people in this entire city."

"That is scary."

Andy then screamed and pointed at his empty desk. "AAAAAHHH! LIMA BEAN!"

Jared took a few more steps away from the screaming goon. "About ten more minutes right?"

* * *

The next morning, the goons were sitting in their kitchen, finishing off their morning coffee round. Misato had come to wake them once again, but thankfully let each goon make their own cup.

Jared and Andy had switched outfits, the larger man having arrived at the counter to the coffee call in clothes clearly too small for his frame and Jared looking ridiculous in the shorts and loud Hawaiian shirt. John had come to the counter with his glasses on backwards.

All three got to listen to the conversation next door while finishing their brew, courtesy of the too-thin walls of the apartment.

"WHAT?! Did you just say that I can't go on the trip?!" Asuka's shrill voice came through loud and clear. Too loud. Concussive charges would have been kinder to nearby ears.

Misato said something that sounded like, "Yep."

"Well why not?" Asuka continued.

Misato's voice rose, clearly audible. She sounded testy, like she only had a dozen beers in her. "It's part of your job."

John finished, rinsed out his cup and got the cereal. "Is this about the school trip?"

Jared nodded, which John couldn't see since he hadn't opened the eyes in the back of his head.

"You mean I'm on permanent stand-by?" Asuka continued to protest.

"You got it." Misato said cheerfully.

The goons exchanged looks.

John sat with his cereal. "Twenty bucks says Asuka calls Misato an idiot," he said to Andy.

"It's a bet," Andy replied.

"What _idiot_ decided that?" Asuka shouted.

Andy looked smug.

"_This one_. The Operations Planning Manager," Misato said.

Andy's face fell.

"Pay up." John smirked. A Jackson changed hands.

"What's the catch?" Andy asked. "Also, in all fairness, Asuka calling people names isn't exactly a rare occurrence."

"I know. There needs to be a drinking game about that or something," Jared quipped.

"This doesn't sound familiar?" John asked, trying to reign in the conversation. He snarled when Jared tried to sneak a piece of the sugary stuff out of his bowl. Jared retracted the hand as if backing up from a wolf.

"Shinji," Asuka barked. "Why don't you stop hiding behind that cup of tea and talk some sense into this woman, act like a man!"

The goons strained to hear Shinji's reply. "Actually, I kind of already expected that we wouldn't go."

"So, you've already given up," said Asuka.

"He nods," Jared said suddenly. "Asuka calls him housebroken."

"How pathetic. There's nothing more useless than a housebroken male."

"Shinji complains," John quietly added a second before Shinji spoke.

"Hey, don't talk about me like that."

"The Angel could attack while they're away," whispered Andy.

"Look, I know how you must feel, but there's just no other way. There's always the possibility than an Angel might attack while you're away," said Misato.

"The 'attack them first' speech," whispered Jared.

Asuka launched into her rant. "So I get stuck here on stand-by status while everyone else is having fun?! Why is it that _we're_ the ones who always have to be ready to defend against _them_? Any good officer knows that the best defense is a good offense. Why can't we find them and attack them _first_?"

John stroked his chin in thought as they listened to the rest.

Misato answered, "_If_ we could do that, we would do it. Look, think of this as an opportunity to get ahead for a change. The two of you can catch up on your studies while the rest of your classmates are on their trip." She put some steel into her voice, making the goons on the other side of the wall sit up straighter. "Or did you think I hadn't seen these report cards?"

Shinji squawked. Misato pressed on. "I guess you thought I wouldn't know about your test scores yet. Well, all of your grades are forwarded directly to my terminal, and I have been _very_ disappointed with _both_ of you."

Asuka chuckled, her argument thwarted. "This is so silly, and this school's grades are just dumb. The old-fashioned numeric grading scale you use on your exams is stupid."

"In Rome," John trailed off, finishing his cereal.

"--Do as the Romans do," finished Misato. "You could at least try to adjust to Japanese school life."

"Ah! This sucks!" Asuka yelled. There was silence for a moment, then someone threw themselves down on the couch next door very hard and turned on the TV.

"So--" said Jared.

"--we're in--" said Andy.

"MAGMA DIVER!" Shouted John, startling the other goons, who fell out of their chairs in a tangle of limbs.

"And Asuka is going to wear that swimsuit." Jared quietly cheered to himself, thanking the gods above for Asuka's... er, bounty.

"What is John yelling about?" Misato asked from the other apartment.

Shinji answered. "Something about lava."

But goons didn't hear him, because John was too busy fending off Jared and Andy, and Jared and Andy were too busy attacking John.

* * *

After dodging Yamanaki, the goons bribed Ritsuko to get the location of the Olympic-sized pool in the NERV fitness and recreation wing. The pilots were enjoying the pool instead of enjoying their field trip, and the goons indeed to follow Misato's advice and 'do as the Romans do.'

And they were. Two of them, anyway. Andy had taken the air conditioning express en route and was god-knows-where by now.

Jared wore a Hawaiian shirt—unbuttoned, in his size, tasteful--and Bermuda shorts; also in his size, thankfully buttoned. He completed the ensemble with some flip-flops, sunglasses, and a little neon green drink with an umbrella in it. He sat next to Shinji in one of the plastic chairs near the pool, sipping at his drink and peeking at the boy's laptop. "Studying?"

"Science. What's the drink?"

Smiling, "Science. Mountain Dew Margarita."

Asuka comes up behind Shinji in her bikini. Oh yeah, you _know_ the one we're talking about. "Well, aren't you the good student!"

"I try," said Jared. Then he caught an eyeful of her outfit. "Well, Ms. Sohryu, you are certainly dressed for the occasion."

"I was talking to Shinji, Pervert-san. And I'm here to use the pool. Since I can't dive in Okinawa, I'll just have to settle for here."

"I have to be--" Shinji broke off as he turned to face Asuka and instead turned to face a weapons-grade deployment of cleavage.

Fortune smiled on the poor boy that minute, for Asuka was too busy looking at the screen to realize Shinji was wandering through paradise.

She calmly typed in the answer. "Hmmm, can't you solve an equation this easy?"

The boy drifted away from paradise long enough to do a double-take at the screen. "How'd you solve this, when you bombed the exam at school?"

Jared twirled his tiny umbrella in one hand idly. "She never learned kanji at the university she went to, so she couldn't read the test."

At this, both pilots looked at him suspiciously, though Shinji's gaze drifted back to Asuka's upper chest after a moment.

Asuka's suspicious look morphed into a mild scowl. "How did... Never mind, what's the next problem?"

Shinji dragged his eyes back to the laptop. "It's in regards to thermal expansion."

Jared set his drink on the table, stood, and swiftly moved behind Asuka. "That's easy. In short when things get warm, they expand, and when things cool they contract."

"I know that, but--"

"For example, if I were to warm Asuka's breasts," He cupped the 2nd Child's chest. "Would they get bigger or smaller?"

Shinji could do this math. He added up Asuka's indignation, multiplied it by disgust, and quickly worked through the long-division of righteous fury. The answer said he was talking to a dead man. Blushing, he answered, "Larger?"

Jared could count. He had about four words before consciousness was forcibly taken from him. "It was worth it."

_CRACK!!!_

Jared's body skipped across the length of the pool, ricocheted off the far edge, and finally came to rest against the wall. A raspy groan of pain from the body indicated that Jared was not dead, but very likely wished he was. John spared the scene a glance, then returned his attention to his swimming goddess with a sigh.

* * *

More than a mile away as the crow flies, and just shy of two miles straight down, through two layers of solid rock (let's see a crow fly through _that_), Andy was busy polishing his Evangelion.

His one hundred and twenty-five foot tall _chrome-plated_ Evangelion.

"You think that this is a penalty?! HA! I am honored to have the best looking mecha in the world!!!" Andy yelled from the scaffolding around the right shoulder plate.

Ritsuko's voice came over the cage's P.A. system. "You missed a spot."

Andy stopped and looked down from the scaffolding to spy a dull spot on the lower left thigh. "Son of a BIIIIIIIIITCH!"

* * *

As their office was bugged sixty-four ways from Sunday, or any other day of the week, the goons had retreated to an underground parking garage attached to an abandoned building an hour outside of the city, to discuss their coming plans.

The pool antics of this morning are but a distant memory, save for the bandages Jared wears about his head.

"So, we have classes with Asuka today after school," John was saying.

Jared pumped a fist in the air. "YEEE--" then stopped and held onto his bandaged head as if it might fly off in joy. "Ow..."

"But their class is gone on a field trip," Andy pointed out.

"Ms. Sohryu is in a special class to help her learn Kanji, remember? Since she's staying, we obviously have to go to the class as well." John pointed out.

Jared shifted mental gears, but missed fifth and got stuck in second, picturing Asuka...

...

_Ugh_.

Andy gave Jared's weird slack-jawed expression a disgusted look. "Well, getting his mind off of such matters, what about Sandalphon?"

Not going to talk about the thoughts going through Jared's head as a bit of drool formed at the corner of his mouth.

"The eighth Angel?" John shrugged. "We'll just have to take it as we see it."

Jared's hands rose of their own accord to flex at the air as if groping something imaginary.

"He'll be okay, right?"

"Oh, he's just a little messed up after that pool incident."

"But he _will_ be okay, right?"

John waved Andy's concern of dismissively. "Sure, whatever. He'll be fine. As for the eighth, the very least we could do is warn NERV."

"Such as an exact description of what it is, where it will show up, when it will show up, what its capabilities are, et cetera?"

"Well, I was thinking something faintly melodramatic and entirely evil... very Gendo-esque."

"You are evil."

"Thanks. You're version of the facts might work..."

Andy preened.

"...if we wanted to drive them completely nuts."

"Aw shucks... Hey! Isn't that what we're here to do?"

John considered this out loud. "True, but we drive them completely over the edge, who's to say they won't kill us out of the sheer lunacy?"

"We can stop bullets!" Andy said confidently.

"Not yet we can't," John countered.

Jared's hands continued to move in suggestive ways.

"Then we'll kill them first!"

John rubbed his forehead as if to drive off the coming headache and muttered under his breath. "It's like a bunch of kinder-gardeners... with automatic weapons." He cleared his throat and returned to the conversation. "Look, we'll just tell them enough so that they don't rush in too hastily."

Andy stopped making 'guns' with his hands and shooting noises with his mouth. "What?"

"Rush in too hastily. As in, too quickly?"

Andy looked even more confused than usual. "What did you say?"

"We can't just let them rush in too quickly!"

Andy tried to clear out one ear, and put on his thinking face while examining a dictionary that wasn't in his hand a moment ago. "Those words... can they be used in a sentence like that?"

John quickly applied a pair of two by fours to the backs of Andy and Jared's heads with hitherto un-heard-of-speed. The two goons were flattened comically into the concrete.

Breathing heavily, John put away the lumber. "Ed... James... Andy... Jared..." He shivered, and a third name cut his lips in a bleeding whisper. "Dave..."

Jared slowly picked himself up off the floor. "Owie..."

"Glad to see you're back among the living." John said through a haze of sarcasm so thick it was capable of supporting life.

Jared waved off the sarcasm and checked his Mini-MAGI. "Egads! We're gonna be late!" Then he noticed his unconscious frie--er, comrade. "What the fuck?"

John put a hand on his shoulder solemnly. "It's better if you don't hear the details. And relax, we have a few hours."

Jared placed his hands on John's shoulders as if he was going to tell the saner goon that his mother has just been torn apart by tentacle demons. Jared seemed to brace himself for a violence response, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, and then spoke in a low, soothing tone. "John, I want you to listen to me closely. We are lost inside of NERV. We have been lost in here since four in the morning. It's almost four in the afternoon, and we haven't even had a damn thing to eat. Now, we either haul ass like we've never hauled ass before, or we get Andy to lead us through the ventilation system again. He looked at Andy. "Who, I happen to notice, you just knocked out. Now, if we were to miss even a few minutes of Miss Sohryu's heavenly beauty, I shall have to hurt you gravely."

John looked deep into his friend's eyes, then to the bandages on his head. "She's still pissed at you."

"I know."

John's glasses glinted mysterious in the light, despite the fact the goons were enshrined in shadow. "Do you... Well, let me check my map. You carry Andy."

"Dude, you knocked him out!"

"Dude, I'm navigating!"

Jared executed an arrogant hair flip, badly. "Dude, I can navigate just fine."

"Dude, you can never get where you _want_ to go."

"_Dude_."

"Dude."

Jared growled under his breath as he hoisted Andy's comatose form onto his back and obediently followed John out of the parking garage like a loyal puppy.

* * *

Asuka's Japanese Language class was the picture of both order and serenity. Like a chess match played the bank of a placid lake. Like a military cot at the bottom of said lake. Like the bodies of certain authors whose metaphor licenses have been revoked... Kanji and English words were written in a brief, precise hand at the top of a fastidiously clean chalkboard. To one side of said chalkboard stood a man befitting a different century, dressed in a manner so ancient one would require archeological knowledge (or teh internetz) to identify it. Since we're not here to talk about him, we'll just mention he's lecturing at the moment and move on.

The remainder of the classroom was also old fashioned. In previous decades, Japanese schools featured low tables for the students that sat two each, and the teacher was on a raised platform at the front of the class. This arrangement changed only after the light bulb replaced the kerosene lantern (internetz again). Changed everywhere except this room, that is. Of course, anyone knowledgeable in the history of Japanese interior design would also be quick to point out that the rest of the building is not just modern but new, as in built within the last five years new. Security would like to know how the hell a crazy history buff got into a school classroom.

Asuka, sitting alone at a table near the front of the class, didn't appreciate the décor, but being well-read at least knew the history behind it, and thought it rather matched the lecturing teacher. The sensei was being less strict than usual, which should have made her happier than she was. Something bugged her. Maybe it was the fact she was not swimming in the warm waters surrounding Okinawa right now. Maybe it was because she had bombed her test, despite her superior intellect and superb tutoring. Or maybe it's because the lights were dimming ominously...

Wait, what?

The door slid open with a thunderous crash, fog billowing in from the darkened portal. The room's floor was quickly flooded with a thick white cloud of gauzy mist. John then strolled in, the fog billowing around him like a cloak.

Or at least that was the idea.

Something whizzed by the Goon's ear, and its passing sucked the smoke from the room and stirred the oxygen, relighting the lamps. John turned slowly until he could identify the object halfway into the wall as a seemingly ordinary chalkboard eraser.

The Sensei was still holding the same stance he had been, facing the board writing down the session's lesson. When he spoke it was with the kind of authority reserved for Generals and heads of state that had earned their place as leaders of men.

"You are late."

"My apologies, I got lost."

"You are not in uniform."

"Uniform? I'm not a student."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I'm supposed to learn how to write Japanese."

Asuka fought to keep the grin from rising on her lips.

"Japanese?" The Sensei repeated. "You mean Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana?"

"I don't need to know the names of your pets, I just want to save the world and read a newspaper without tripping over your dark-age brushstrokes."

"Perhaps you would prefer Romaji?"

"Is he an anime director? I don't think I've seen his work."

"It would seem then, that you have much to learn about Japanese writing." His voice began to rise like the tide, "And if you are here to learn, then you are a student. And if you are a student, then you will dress like one!"

John looked down at his clothes. Sneakers, okay maybe, but dark slacks, nice black leather belt with a steel buckle, and a dark grey polo shirt with the red NERV logo on the breast pocket. It'd become sort of his uniform, the kind of thing lazy animators would settle on and imply that there was nothing but the same outfit in his closet.

"How am I not dressed appropriately? I wear this to NERV and they don't mind."

"Hmph. Take your seat."

John finally took a good look at the room, settling in horror on the cushion, "Oh my God, you have got to be joking."

The Sensei threw another eraser, this time at one of the cushions, knocking it onto a neat stack in the back of the room. "If you do not like the cushions, then you will not get one."

"Crap."

"NO SWEARING!" Was the last thing John heard before yet another eraser (How amny did that guy have?) whistled through the air and smacked, cushion side first thankfully, into his forehead and knocked him back into the hallway.

Asuka couldn't help giggling, she tried to muffle it with the back of her hand, but Sensei still turned and approached her desk. The half-breed froze in terror, so scared she didn't move even when he neatly broke her desk in half.

Suddenly exposed, Jared also froze, his hand mere inches from the hem of Asuka's skirt. He cranked his head to look up at the Sensei.

"You have a serious pest problem here. Why, if you hadn't scared away that pack of vicious hobo spiders I was about to flick off of my glorious queen's leg--"

Righteous fury flooded Asuka's mind and grabbing half of her desk, she started beating the perverted goon with it until there was little remaining, then she grabbed the other half of the desk and resumed.

"Sohryu!" The Sensei barked, "Take a new seat."

Asuka rushed to comply, moving her supplies over and settling down on a new cushion. John started moaning from the hallway and eventually crawled into the room and slumped cross-legged behind the desk the Sensei had assigned him. Asuka heard him mutter, "Psycho Sensei," and shuddered that she had come up with a similar moniker her first day.

"So where's the Maniac?" She asked John.

A piece of chalk zipped by her head, blowing back her hair. Crap, the warning shot. And Jared was still in the room! John shrugged, keeping his eyes, well, his glasses, on the Sensei.

The plinking sound of falling screws preceded the loud clang of the ventilation grate hitting the floor. Andy slithered out of the duct but ended up on his head and collapsed into a heap, eventually sitting up and dusting off his mind-bending Hawaiian shirt.

Adjusting an imaginary tie, he gestured at the Sensei, "Proceed."

"You are late," Sensei declared simply.

"I was early," Andy replied.

"Class began ten minutes ago."

"I was here thirty minutes ago."

"Then why were you not in your seat?"

"The screws." To illustrate he held up one of them, "You see, they were overly tightened."

"And was the door overly tightened as well?"

"Of course not, Sensei, you and Miss Sohryu made it in okay."

"Then use the door next time."

"But that's the way they expect you to come in."

"Who is they?"

"That's just it, I don't know. They could be anyone."

"Aren't you going to tell him he's out of uniform?" John complained.

The eraser hit John's face hard enough to roll him backward over the table and into a sitting position on the cushion. He looked around confused for a moment before realizing he was in tremendous pain and grabbed his face moaning.

"Nice throw! I've been trying to get him to shut up for years now."

Jared sat up suddenly, his wounds mysteriously bandaged, "Someone shut John up?"

"No thanks to you, Waddell."

"You asshole!" A piece of chalk broke the sound barrier next to Jared's ear, but for all he reacted it might have been a fly. "If you make me late again I will personally break your three favorite fingers."

Andy stood up. A piece of chalk exploded against his forehead, sprinkling his black hair with white dust. It may have been a fly performing a touch-n-go. "Oh ho, is that a challenge?"

Jared stood up too, "Anytime! Anywhere!"

Both boys slid into the classic fireball stance.

"KAMEHAMEHA!!!" Jared roared.

"GALLET GUN FIRE!!!" Andy countered.

Silence.

"You guys knew that wouldn't work, right?" Asuka asked.

"Wishful thinking?" Andy offered.

"Speaking of," Jared said, "I wish I had some whipped cream, chocolate syrup, some cherries..." turning to Asuka, "Are you allergic to cherries, my dear?"

Asuka snapped her table in two with her bare hands and threw half at each moron. "DIE, YOU FREAKS!"

Andy ducked the desk, as Righteous Fury can only be focused in one direction at a time. It sailed on until John unknowingly caught it with his much abused forehead and was finally knocked out. Jared took the full force of the fury (say that five times fast - _Ed._) and stayed on the ground with his wreckage.

Asuka's satisfaction was short-lived as another eraser found the temple of her head and put her lights out. Five erasers, sixteen pencils, and three desks later, Andy was put down as well.

"You all will learn," The Psycho Sensei declared.

"Defeat... will... only... make... me... stronger..." Wheezed Andy in the delirium of his Psycho Sensei-induced nap.

* * *

After the Classroom Massacre cleaned out the office betting pool, the quartet of wounded were send to one of NERV's infirmaries. Primarily because the attending doctor thought it would be funny, Andy and Jared were paired off in one room while John and Asuka were stuffed in an adjacent one. A thin, thin wall separated the two rooms.

"Mornin'." John offered Asuka as she pulled her eyes open.

She checked the clock and gave him a frosty glare. "It's late afternoon."

"Indeed."

Andy made it known to all he was awake, through the wall. "THIS ISN'T OVER, SENSEI! NOT BY A LONG SHOT!"

John frowned. "I worry about him sometimes."

The wall proved utterly inadequate in silencing the following cavalcade of maniacal laughter.

Shuddering, Asuka turned her nose up at the goon in the room. "It's not like you're any better. You're just as bad as both of them combined."

"Yes, but when you combine them, they can cancel each other out and you get a rational guy." He smiled a winning smile.

"Just stay on your side of the room."

Through the wall, "YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE MY WRATH!!! BWAHAHAH--"

Which was cut short by a metal-pan-hitting-head type of clang, followed by Jared's voice. "SHUT UP! _Some_ of us are _trying_ to grope the nurses! Ahem, where was I?"

Which was naturally followed by another, matching clang.

"It's a shame those two had to ruin class, I was hoping to actually learn to read. It's a pain to have to rely on others to do the simplest of tasks." John mused.

"Yeah..." Asuka then realized that she was actually agreeing with him. Quickly, "But at least I don't suffer that weakness."

"Ow! What the fuck? Do I have lice or something? All these head wounds... And where is the beautious Asuka?!" Apparently, Jared had rediscovered consciousness. Reality remained elusive, as ever. "WHERE IS MY DARLING?! IF THAT FOUL WOMANIZER, GENONI, HATH DOTH TOUCH BUT ONE SPARKLING FIERY HAIR ON HER SWEET HEAD, MY RIGHTEOUS VENGEANCE SHALL FALL UPON--"

A more enthusiastic clang cut him off this time, followed by a solid thud.

John glared at the wall failing to block out the noises.

"That was for the sneak attack, and _this_ is for my donut!"

The cacophony was complete once the sounds of Jared and Andy fighting could be heard.

Asuka tried on some tact and found it wanting. "So... they've always been like this?"

John shrugged. "As far back as I can remember. But I try to keep them contained."

"Not that I've seen."

"You are aware that Andy can do the Final Flash in his Eva, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Yet the world is still here, correct?"

"Apparently. Your point?"

"Andy would've blown this place to kingdom come a long time ago if he wasn't so busy fighting Jared and myself. On the other hand, Jared would've already bedded you and driven the rest of this city nuts if he wasn't so occupied with fighting Andy and myself."

Cracking her knuckles. "And what do they do to keep you in check?"

John grinned, creepy in the hyperbole-ic sense with the lens glare factored in. "Who says I'm kept in check? But I suppose I'd have done something bad by now if I wasn't so busy watching those two."

Asuka would have climbed up the wall if it was possible, just to get further away from the goon.

"On a lighter note," Under his breath, but nearly quietly enough, he added, "If there is such a thing in this series..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"You just said--"

"I said _nothing_. You really wanted to go diving, didn't you?"

Asuka looked about to argue, but instead filed that indiscretion away for later. "Don't remind me."

"I was just wondering, what if an Angel really did attack, but it was really deep below the surface?"

"Surface? Of what, the Pacific?"

"Oh, I mean underground, like in a dormant volcano?"

"I'm sure they would come up with a plan to defeat it."

"Like maybe send a pilot down to fight it?"

"You mean attack it? I wish. I'm getting sick of always waiting for them to attack."

John hopped out of bed. His smile of actual joy was even creepier than his creepy smile. "Then be ill no more! For I have a cunning plan to... is there a draft in here?" John looked at the hospital smock filling in for his business casual wardrobe.

"HENTAI!"

Jared and Andy settled back down in time for John to fly through the wall and get tangled in some medical equipment. Why a rack of med stuff would stop him when a wall couldn't is anyone's guess. Once his body came to a stop, Andy moved in to check if John was dead (and finish him off if he wasn't), while Jared tried to check on Asuka (or was that check her out?) but was stopped when John's hospital bed flew through the hole in the wall at freight train speeds.

* * *

The wreck that had been made of the east wing of the infirmary was set upon by the NERV repair crews like a pack of investment bankers on a lost wallet. The four pilots were shuttled into an undamaged wing and left in separate rooms until they were checked out. Asuka left early that evening. John and Andy were not far behind. Jared left almost three hours later with a dozen pounds of gauze and the precise measurements of the infirmary's entire female staff.

Back at the apartment, they began their meeting.

It was Jared's turn to speak first. "Now that that's over with, we must train to reach the next level of power in the plan."

Andy snarled, wishing he had his WWII helmet on because it always added a little edge to his snarls. "For once I agree with you, Jared. I must make that Sensei PAY for the humiliation he inflicted on me!"

John calmly added, "I have yet to inform NERV about the next Angel."

"Then CALL them, damn it! We'll be outside." Andy turned to Jared. "Prepare to suffer, witless fool!"

Jared looked at the fistful of phone numbers he'd managed to get at the infirmary. Sure, most of the nurses were all too eager to give him a head injury that required a CT scan, but some were pretty receptive. 'Some' being equal to 'twelve.' Now he'd be dealing with Andy while John played on the phone with the doctor. He gave the phone a forlorn look, tucked the numbers, and slugged Andy.

Instead of falling to the floor like a sack of particularly dull stones, Andy's body picked up a trajectory and flew through the wall behind him. Jared dashed after the goon, preparing to finish him off so he could steal the phone from John and try some phone sex with the good doctor.

John stood and stared the hole in the wall for a second before sighing. He picked up the phone and dialed. On the third ring, Ritsuko picked up. "Moshi moshi?"

"I'll make this short and sweet, Doctor. Mount Asamayama Earthquake Research Institute will report an anomaly soon if they haven't already. The Angel, Sandalphon, will be at a depth of seventeen hundred and eighty meters by the time your operation will be ready due to lava currents. If you hurry, there will be a chance to capture and subdue, but only if you act now. Otherwise it will grow out of its weak larval form--"

"Absorb two robots and become complete?"

"DAMN IT, WOMAN, I'M SERIOUS! ...Hello? Hello?" John hung up and dialed again.

Ritsuko answered. "Domino's Pizza! May I take you order?"

"Yeah, can I get a large pepperoni... er, I mean..." He glared coldly at the receiver. "Don't do that again." In reply, the receiver emitted a clear 'click,' signaling the doctor hanging up on him. Growling low in his throat, he dialed again. If only this woman didn't get off on pushing his buttons with a hammer.

"1-900-HOT-BABE, what's your pleasure?"

John simply clapped his hand over his mouth. Play along, turn the tables, answer honestly... no option was safe.

He gathered himself, hung up, and threw the infernal phone out the window.

* * *

Ritsuko's office rang with laughter. Winding down, the doctor shook her head at her phone. "He's too easy, really."

As if to test her skill, the phone rang again. Ritsuko immediately picked up. "This is Butter, and I'm sizzling for you." Wondering if John would be capable of coherent speech this time, she took a sip from her mug.

"...You told me you stopped doing that after college, Doctor," said Gendo from the other end of the line.

Ritsuko spit-take was caught on only one security camera, and she would be deleting the footage that night. "Uh... Well... Um..."

"There's time enough for that later. The Mount Asamayama Earthquake Research Institute has reported an anomaly at a depth of fourteen hundred meters in the magma. The MAGI say that there's a fifty-fifty chance that it's an Angel."

Ritsuko's ears screamed for help. Her mouth played for time. Her brain hid under its metaphorical desk, gibbering in abject terror.

A tumbleweed blew through the office, propelled by the drafts from the air condition system. "..."

"Akagi?" Came out of the phone.

She grasped at straws, cursing his name. "John... That little shit."

"Dr. John Toyamota is a top researcher, I would hope you would have more respect for him, Doctor."

"THE OTHER JOHN, YOU PRICK!"

"..."

"Um, oops."

"Maybe some time off would be in order for you, Dr. Akagi. I'll have Misato take care of the operation, okay?"

Ritsuko hung up the phone in slow-motion.

In his apartment, John set down the voodoo doll wearing a white lab coat, and began cackling.

* * *

By early o'clock the next day, the pilots were assembled in a darkened briefing room. Misato was in the middle of her briefing. "...So currently the Angel is in larval form. Therefore the objective of this operation is to capture the Angel, and if that's not possible, destroy it. Any questions."

Shinji turned to the tallest American. "Andy, why did you insist on this seating arrangement?"

Andy had insisted on this seating arrangement at the beginning of the meeting. So insistent, in fact, that security was now possession of three shiny new fifty-caliber pistols and a bowl-loosening sense of foreboding.

"You _need_ to even ask? Safety's sake, of course." Andy said.

"Safety?'

Andy sighed. He hated this 'explanation' stuff. "We have to keep Jared away from Asuka and John away from Rei. Who better to assign this vital task them the guy who blows up the whole world and the guy who eats an Angel."

Misato would have put a halt to the pilots-only question and answer segment by now, but she was too busy trying to divorce her jawbone from the floor.

Shinji won the race to resupply his mouth with words. "...W-WHAT?!"

"Oh, I guess it hasn't happened yet, never mind. Besides, it was really your mom that ate the Angel." Andy has this unique ability to make the people around him feel like an advanced pentagon weapon system is boiling their brain inside of their skull.

"WHAT?!" Shouted Shinji.

"Shinji with a backbone is kinda scary." Jared added.

John pulled out some popcorn and began munching on the buttery goodness. "Yes, but quite entertaining." Flippantly, "We'll have to kill Andy after Shinji gets done with him."

By now everyone else was crowed around Andy. Andy put his hands to his face. "SOLAR FLARE!" A whole bunch of absolutely nothing happened. "I said, SOLAR FLARE!"

Ominous silence.

Then Jared jumped to his feet. "Oh, oops." He turned off the projector that was lighting up the room, then hits the main lights.

The sudden illumination blinded everyone, allowing Andy to escape through the ventilation ducts yet again.

"ANDY!" Shinji roared, then dived into the duct in hot pursuit.

"Ummm... Well... Moving on, the pilot for this Assignment will be... Asuka. You will carry out the mission."

Jared and John started, and searched their persons for earplugs in growing panic while Asuka put the back of her hand near her mouth. "OHOHOHOHOHOHO!!! But of course. Only a real pilot like me could possible carry out such a vital mission!"

"Actually, your EVA is the only one that can be fitted with the proper equipment for the mission."

Asuka stared at the Major as if she'd just field dressed a rabbit on the briefing room's table.

A tumbleweed drifted through the room.

"how did that get in here?" Rei asked.

"John, maybe?" Misato said helplessly, not sure even what the... thing merrily bounding across her floor actually was.

John just smiled. "Just a little touch of home."

Suddenly, Andy fell through the roof vent. He flipped in mid air but missed his seat by a foot, hitting the ground with a thud.

John turned to the arrival. "Ah, Andy. You finally lose Shinji?"

"Yes. Damn, I had to double-back several times before I lost him."

"Where did you lose him?" Jared asked.

Andy opened his mouth, looked helplessly at the Major, then whispered to John. "EVA graveyard."

Countless hundreds of meters and thirty-four armored doors away, Shinji was screaming his head off.

Here and now, John went into damage control mode. "We'll talk later. Jared, walk this way."

"What happened? Where did he leave Shinji?"

John motioned Jared over and whispered to him, "EVA Graveyard."

Jared looked at Andy. "We'll talk later." To John, "I hope he doesn't find the--"

* * *

"AAAHHH! IT'S REI... AND REI... AND REI... AND REI..."

* * *

"That's right next door," Andy cut in.

"_What's_ right next door?" Misato asked, and was promptly ignored.

"We'll talk now." Jared and John echoed each other

Both broke a two-by-four over Andy's head, then rushed out of the room.

Flummoxed, Misato lifted her hands into the air. To no-one in particular, "What the _hell?_"

Asuka waved dismissively at the other two women in the room. "Feh, I have a date with fame and have to get ready. Later."

End Chapter 6

**

* * *

A note from the author:** In the script version of this episode, we ended on a happier note. Speaking of script fanfics, I have suddenly come to the realization that although I'm free to wax nostalgic in my authors' notes, readers under the age of twenty-five (as of 2009) would be inclined to simply ignore me, so I'll skip that.

I suppose the only thing left to do know is give you the recipe for our signature Mountain Dew Margarita. Yes, this is an actual drink concocted in a fit of tequila deprivation. It isn't great, but it's cheap, easy, and it has caffeine in it. Drink responsibly, people.

MOUNTAIN DEW MARGARITA:

6 oz. Mountain Dew (half a can)

1 shot (more or less to taste/desired strength) tequila, this is about 1.5 oz

Juice of 1 lime, freshly squeezed

Ice, as we make this one 'on the rocks.'

INSTRUCTIONS:

Do I look like Alton brown? In order, put the ice, lime juice, tequila and Mt. Dew in a cup of your choosing (16 oz glass would be best). Stir. Salted rim optional, enjoyment mandatory.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** Oh woe is me! I do not own Evangelion! Darn it...

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 7: All in a Day's Work / ANGEL ATTACK

* * *

Naked Rei clones.

(Welcome Google Searchers. - _Ed._)

Dozens of them.

Soulless husks floating in a giant back-lit tank in a room made entirely of metal and glass under a kilometer of rock and armor plating.

Shinji Ikari, lone Evanglion pilot, was curled into a fetal position on the floor. A shred of him wondered why the tank had to be shaped in a semi-circle that surrounds him like a nightmare that won't end. The rest of his brain told his mouth not to scream or the zombies will find him, then went off to lunch.

Not that it registered, but the room smelled of fresh blood.

Jared walked into the room, nodded and waved to the Rei clones, picked up the unresisting Shinji like a sack of potatoes, and left through the main doors. Behind him, the doors closed and locked themselves.

In the outer chamber, Jared had halted the mad dash to aid his fellow Eva pilot to make John swear on his Nintendo that he wouldn't try to peep on the naked Rei clones. John finished the swearing in before realizing that meant he'd either have to help blind-folded, or the planets had aligned and Jared was being clever.

As luck would have it, Jared was not only being clever, but also misappropriating six rolls of duct tape to help John keep his promise, whether he wanted to or not.

That explained the muffled sounds and the mound of duct tape on the wall. It didn't help get Shinji back, though. Jared gingerly deposited his cargo on the floor and shook his head. "You're a mess, Ace. I know it's kind of overwhelming and more surrealistic than Modern French Art..." He shuddered. "But don't worry."

Shinji may or may not have heard him. He did twitch when Jared pulled the duct tape off of John's mouth eliciting a scream of agony.

Simmering with rage, "That _hurt_."

"The Rei clones will thank me for that some day." Jared said, the superior smirk coating his words instead of his face.

"Then I shall dedicate my _life_ to making sure that day _never comes_."

"Are you always this testy after I play Boy Scout and do a good deed?"

John scoffed. "Of course, if by that you mean after you tear half of my face off with duct tape."

"Everyone's a critic. You gonna do something about Shinji?" Jared nodded at the broken human on the floor.

"I though you were the Boy Scout."

"I moved into management. I'm delegating. Fix him."

"I'm taped to the fucking wall."

"No you aren't." Jared corrected impatiently, he was missing quality Asuka time on this useless argument.

"What the, when did you..."

"Fear my elite ninja skills!" The blond Goon declared.

"You don't have any--AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGHH!"

"Huh, bit of a delayed reaction there. Well, hurry up and fix him, There are only so many Asuka-minutes in a day."

"Murder you..." John growled and moved the boy around so he could see into the pilot's eyes. Pulling a shiny pen-shaped device from his shirt and waving it in front of Shinji. "Ever see one of these?"

The boy's eyes just focused on the object, which flashed brightly. Shinji's eyes remained glassy while John put the device away. "We split up outside of the briefing room. You got lost and Jared and I just found you." He pointed at the small doors one the other side of the hallway. "Elevator's that way."

Shinji blinked. "T-thanks, guys."

"We'll be up in a minute," Jared said.

Shinji left. Once he was gone, Jared grabbed his comrade by the shoulders. "You have a flashy-thingy?!"

"Oh, this old thing?" Out came flashy-thingy. _Flash_, went flashy-thingy. Then, flashy-thingy went away. "Let go. We found Shinji next to The Graveyard. I'm going to get his jacket. You're going to make sure he gets topside safely."

Jared blinked and removed his hands from John's shoulders. "Well, don't be long."

John smiled as Jared quickly left in pursuit of Shinji. Once the doors closed, he rubbed his hands together with glee. "And now my blue-haired beauties..."

* * *

Andy awoke on the Briefing Room floor, and immediately leapt to his feet and thumped his chest.

"YEAH! It's good to be... alive?" A glance around revealed that the room was empty. "Damn it!" He stomped around in anger, stopping only when something yellow fluttered to the ground from his shirt. It was a note. Picking it up, he read the contents out loud. "Headed for the Asamayama earthquake research institute. Wish you were here. Get your butt in gear. Signed the Being of Overwhelming Power, Jared."

He scoffed. Then, "IT'S MECHA TIME!"

Wishing he had a theme song of his own, Andy settled for humming the Wing Commander one that plays when the characters are running to their ships. At volumes science insists are impossible for humans to hum. Nonetheless, Andy defies the laws of both man and nature, and makes it to his Eva in record time.

Then he had to double back to the locker rooms and change into his plug suit.

Once inside, the main systems came on line, Andy synchronized with the behemoth, and hatches above him opened as the Eva slid onto the launch rack.

"CHARGE!!!" He screamed, hammering the huge red button on his controls that didn't actually do anything but looked too good to resist threatening the techs into installing.

Technicians in charge of the cage made their phone calls. The Operational Commander tried to figure out how she was talked into leaving an Eva behind. Eventually, launch authorization was given and an overly enthusiastic back-up bridge bunny tried out her best impression of the Major.

"LAUNCH EVA!"

As the launcher kicked in, Rob Zombie's _Dragula_ began blasting over the mecha's internal and external speaker systems. Inertia propelled the Eva to new heights, where the metal wings were allowed to unfold and set the Eva of Death aloft.

_Now_ he had a theme song. He also appeared to have a tactical computer. He pushed a few buttons at random, muttering insanities to himself. "Where's the volcano? Look for a volcano. It's a big smoking mountain, damn it. It can't be that easy to miss. I'm looking for some F-Type bombers preparing to erase said mountain, and some large equipment for--THERE IT IS!!!"

There was a spectacle laid out on the ground in a carnival of colors. A gray lollipop was the massive crane set near the glowing red crater. About half a kilometer away sat an array of white trailers and trucks that were obviously the command center for this op. The gray blob would be John's Unit-05, fretting around the blue and white blob that would be Unit-00' instead of doing his damn patrol. The purple blob of Unit-01 was on winch duty, apparently guarding the massive device from the very threatening tree line just uphill of the operation. Near the big red circle was a black blob thing that looked half the size of the other mecha. That would be Jared, gnawing his nails down to his wrist bones in worry.

The lack of a red blob on the sea of green vegetation told Andy where Asuka was.

No F-Type bombers, but Andy was an optimist, and sure he could scare some up if they didn't just wander by in the next ten to fifteen minutes.

On the ground, things had been quiet for far too long, so all eyes that could be spared looked up when what sounded like old American rock music began faintly playing _from above_.

"Bastard!" John cursed. "_I_ wanted to come in with music first!"

After the song ended and Andy landed, some F-Type bombers did a quick pass and moved to circling at a comfortable distance, prompting Unit-04 to engage in a brief victory dance.

"I'm glad you're enjoying this!" Jared snapped at him.

"I am, just a little bit. Things will get better after your girlfriend awakens the unholy horror slumbering beneath our armored feet and brings doom upon us all. I expect this to happen in the next five--"

Asuka's voice cut over the comm. "Angel secure. And I heard that, you asshole."

"Cut the chatter," Misato's voice joined Asuka's. "Begin retrieval pull."

Unit-03 crossed its arms, but no-one could tell, thanks to the crazy armor job.

Unit-04 shrugged helplessly.

"Wait a minute. Retrieval? That means Asuka's coming up. Heh, right into my arms..."

"Rei," said Asuka over the comm, "Remember what we agreed on?"

Unit-00' jump-kicked 03 in the head, knocking the unit back into the tree line, then returned to its patrol position.

Andy blinked.

John spoke into the private comm line to Andy's Eva. "Jared's Evangelion has the most physical strength of all the units, so he's supposed to help 02 get the cage out of that pit, and help 02 out if necessary."

"But... but _I_ am the strongest!"

"Andy..."

"And this operation is FUBAR'd, in five, four, three, two, one!"

Nothing happened, except John cursed his short straw and tried to talk sense into Mucha. "Andy."

"I said _one_!"

Or at least get his attention. "Andy!"

"Something blow up!"

"ANDY!"

"He is lost to us, my friend." Jared said, his Eva stand next to 05. "He has gone... to a dark place."

"You got out of that forest quickly."

"I am one with nature," Jared said with a sage air about him. "Besides, it would be rude to miss out on Venus Rising from the Sea."

"More like Mars rising from the volcano."

Finally, the top of Unit-02's D-Type armor began to surface.

"So there's a plan to get the lava out of the cage, right?" After a moment of listening to the response, "How did the cicada's get on this channel?"

Ritsuko finally replied on a sound-only channel, "The cage walls use magnetic fields to hold in the Angel, the magma should pass right through it."

While Andy and John have their Units ready a Gallat Gun and a Special Beam Cannon just in case, Unit-03 grabbed the Angel cage and set it on the ground near the hole. Within the massive metal cube, a black orb shimmered darkly, it's coloring that of pure madness.

Jared had his own take on the orb's appearance. "Its surface shimmers like the blood of innocent children spilled in the moonlight."

Asuka looked at Unit-03 through her display in horror. Sure, the thing was disgusting, but that was... She really didn't want to know what was going on in his head. Eventually, Unit-02 removed itself from the crater without incident or aid (unwanted or otherwise) from Unit-03. It and the other American Evas stood around the Angel's cage.

"It worked!" Misato's shout was triumphant.

The goons echoed her, their voices ringing with incredulity. "It worked?!"

"Yeah, weren't you guys paying attention?" She asked rhetorically to the goons, who were saving time by ignoring her.

"Screw the river," Jared said, "We three stones have done some fucking major landscaping."

"Cool," John said with a smile.

Andy did what was expected of him. He broke into song. "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to NERV we go. We've got the Angel, there is no danger, hi-ho, hi-ho..."

The embryo twitched. Before anyone else could so much as blink, all three American Evas were aiming glowing balls of energy at the thing, each larger than the egg itself. A massive drop of salty water appeared from nowhere and rolled down the midnight-black surface. No more twitches came from the orb.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did we break your concentration?" John asked the egg.

Nothing moved. The energy balls hummed softly in the air, like nukes on very short leashes.

Inside of the Mobile Command Center, Misato turned off the live feed to the pilots. "Is it... _scared_ of them?"

Outside, Jared stroked an imaginary kung fu master beard, a very master Pei movement. Andy cackled maniacally. John laughed a big booming evil laugh, straight from the gut... of EVIL!

The other pilots not amused, then after a moment were spooked by a peel of thunder.

* * *

An hour later in the Mobile Command Headquarters, Ritsuko's attention was divided between the quickly stacking data being recorded by NERV's new prize and the backlash of suggesting Misato take all of the pilots to a nearby hot spring to celebrate.

"He slept with two nurses last night!" Misato shouted.

Ritsuko stopped spinning a pen through her fingers. "I saw the film. He's very flexible."

"He's indecent!"

Ritsuko sipped at her coffee, gently arranged few papers on her desk, then cleared her throat and spoke to her long-time friend in a tone normally reserved for a master handing their retainer a tanto. "Mis-chan, you've had a long day. But things went well, the Angel's fully restrained, none of the Evas have so much as a scratch on them, and even the pilots are getting a little bit of well-deserved R-n-R. Why don't you go enjoy it with them?"

"With the pervert?"

"Bring Kaji."

Misato snarled.

"Have some beer."

"Am I that two-dimensional?"

"Mis-chan, you're stressed. I don't know how more clear I can make this: The Angel is secure; go relax." For emphasis, Ritsuko pointed at her office door.

"But what about that blond kid?"

Ritsuko made a note to give the NERV psychologists a call. "Fine, if I arrange for a JSDF escort and bodyguards, will you be okay?"

"I... I think I will be."

"Good." She led Misato to the door as if she were a small child. "There you go. Have a good time, Mis-chan."

"Hai, hai."

* * *

"I don't believe it," said Jared.

The trio were standing in the hall of a traditional Japanese hot spring, known locally as a 'ryokan.' Before them was the entrance to the rear deck that overlooked the men's side of the pool. The rear lobby was little more than a divided hallway that led to the outdoor hot springs

In his defense, standing in a stereotypical, outdoor Japanese hot spring that was part of a very traditional ryokan. was a surreal experience. He grew up in the Pacific Northwest, both the forested and desert areas, and was very familiar with American hot springs. The closest he'd ever been to a ryokan until now was watching anime. Hence the weird moment of disbelief, despite the fact he and the other goons had been here for almost an hour washing away the grime inside the building. Given not more than a bucket, some basic NERV-issue toiletries, and cold running water, the surreality of the experience really began there. He expect to be simply going with the flow by now, but seeing the springs in person... This was way more impressive (and cultural) than piloting giant bio-mechanical war machines or scrubbing himself off in a bathing area that reminded him strongly of certain scenes from _Ranma 1/2_.

And here he thought that commanding a seven hundred ton mecha would never be routine... government agencies could suck the novelty out of _anything_.

Tokyo-3 had much of the 'vibe' of the original Tokyo. It wasn't a perfect replacement, but in this anime, a whole continent had been vaporized, so some slight differences were to be expected. He liked Tokyo-3 as much as he imagined he would have liked the original Tokyo. It was a great place. But this...

"Don't even think about peeking on the womens' side," John said from his elbow, not that John had learned to talk from his arm joint, he was just standing next to Jared and this is a common way of saying that without implying they're being civil to one another. John, like Jared and Andy, was wearing a towel wrapped around his waist. He was still slightly damp from their wash-up inside and eagerly awaiting the moment when they could finally sit down and relax. The slowly steaming pools outside promised relaxation aplenty, and John was not going to miss out on this opportunity, even if he had to murder his comrades in cold blood.

Andy was humming along to the sound of hover gunship flyovers like he was listening to a beloved piece of classical music that got his blood pumping like a death metal concert. The ground troops outside were setting up enough heavy artillery around the springs to repel an invasion force from China while the goons watched in varying degrees of fascination, speculation, and exultant joy.

"Boy, these guys are setting enough heavy artillery to repel an invasion force from China!" Andy squealed excitedly.

"Yeah, it's like they don't trust us to bathe near the womenfolk," Jared said, earning a sharp glares from John and Andy.

After a half-hour of security sweeps, the JSDF guys let Andy into the springs. He shucked his towel, adjusted his swimming trunks, and gently lowered himself into the 'mild' end of the pool with a sigh. "Aaahhh. Not as good as a giant mecha, but close."

After getting checked by security, John made his own entrance, setting his towel on the deck to reveal a sturdy blue pair of swimming trunks. Then he started running right at the pool of water. "CANNONBAAALL!"

Andy watched in naked amusement as John took a running leap at the water. Expecting his fellow goon to land on one of the rocks encircling the natural springs and test the waters with a single toe, he was slightly surprised to see John actually leap almost two meters into the air, steal some hang time while he was up there, and make the biggest splash he could manage...

Then float to the surface, unconscious.

"That looks like it hurt," Andy said to himself, letting John's body float around the pool.

The JSDF soldiers weren't paying much attention to John by then, as a new squad entered the area decked out in full body armor and flak jackets. A machine gun was quickly set up in one corner of the wooden deck leading to the natural springs, which Andy quickly moved to get a better look at.

"Hm... M240 type, a.k.a. MG3. Looks like an M240B model. Seven point six two millimeter NATO rounds. Seven hundred and fifty rounds per minute base rate. A reliable and respected weapon used by most of the world's military... I shall have it!"

Then Jared was wheeled out. Not to be out-done by John's entrance, Jared was strapped to a metal dolly by heavy chains, tied up in a straight jacket, and to top things off, he was wearing a metal face mask made infamous by a certain movie...

"Damn him, I wanted to do the _Silence of the Lambs_ bit!" Andy cursed and ranted.

The JSDF soldiers parked Jared. An officer came to the front and spoke into his tac comm. "The package is on ice, let the girls in."

A hover gunsip flew overhead.

"Hey John," Andy asked his unconscious comrade, "How come the JSDF brass get their sentences emphasized with close air support?"

Silence replied with nothing at all.

"Unconscious again?" Andy scoffed. "Useless."

The officer nodded to some un-heard reply from his radio. Then he ordered two grunts to fish John out of the pool and give him a few slaps to wake him up.

Andy was pretty sure that the brass knuckles were entirely necessary. By the time John was awake, Andy had returned to the pool, his hair and upper body badly singed.

"What happened to you?" John asked.

"The guy next to the 240 Bravo also has a flamethrower."

John waited for Andy to finish.

"And apparently they don't want me touching it."

"The machine gun or the flamethrower?" Questioned John.

"The 240 Bravo. What use is a flamethrower in a hot springs?"

John pointedly looked at Andy's burnt hair, but his look went ignored.

"Hey!" Jared shouted. "I'm trying to mimic a classic American film here! Pay attention!"

John sighed, walked out of the pool and up to Jared, then shoved at his shoulder. The goon, metal dolly and all, fell over. The JSDF soldiers scattered like he'd dumped a live grenade at their feet. The machine gun was quickly pointed at Jared.

"No need for that," said a short Japanese man in a white lab coat. It took John a second to realize the man had spoken in perfect English. The guy waved the M240 off and approached Jared as a scientist would a pet project. He spoke to John without looking at him. "I assume you're the control?"

"If you mean the sane one," John replied in English, "I guess yeah, I am."

He gave the goon a glance, lingering on the top of his head for a split-second. "Are you feeling okay?"

John rubbed at the bandage. "Fine, actually. Weird... no one put that bandage there, and I landed in the pool feet first..."

The scientist-looking man chuckled and drew back from Jared, motioning John to follow. Once at a safe range, he offered his hand to the goon. "John Toyamota. Head researcher at the station here."

John shook the man's hand. "John Genoni. Eva pilot."

Toyamota took a clipboard full of paperwork from the JSDF officer and gave it half a glance before signing. "Thanks for making that recovery, by the way. It went very smoothly." He handed the clipboard back.

John watched as four huge guards wearing body armor that was mostly interlocking plates wield some massive manipulators that unlocked Jared from the dolly, then removed the chains. "I was only assisting. Major Katsuragi was instrumental in ensuring a smooth recovery, you should thank her."

"I did, personally, by coming here and signing off on this paperwork." Toyamota smiled.

The big guys finished with the chains, then used their instruments to unlock the face mask and the two straightjackets, then the whole group high-tailed it out of the springs. Jared rubbed at his wrists, clad in a simple black pair of trunks. The SAW team hunkered down, watching him as if the sixth fleet was about to sprout from his shoulders in a spray of blood and bone and pound hoof across the grounds to decimate the gunnery nest.

"Thanks, I guess," John said ruefully.

"You'll take him from here?"

"I'm afraid so."

Toyamota chuckled again, shook John's hand again, and bid a polite farewell before leaving.

Jared watched him go impassively.

"You bribed Misato to help you make that appearance?"

"Actually, Toyamota wanted a blood sample."

"Straight jacket?"

"I don't like needles."

"Jared 'I beat my fists to hamburger on steel plates for fun' Waddell doesn't like needles?" John watched Jared shudder at the word and threw his hands into the air in defeat. He stalked back into the water muttering to himself. At least Andy was consistently crazy.

Speaking of Andy...

"Get away from that mac--"

FWOOSH!

After standing up and brushing himself off, "...Jared, your hair's on fire."

Jared gave John a funny look and swan-dived into the pool, surfacing at the far end with a sigh. His hair steamed enthusiastically, but was no longer aflame. After a nanosecond of sitting still, his concentration shifted to the armored partition dividing their half of the springs from that of the fairer sex.

"Don't you ever quit?" John asked.

"John, it's like they say: Two rolling stones are moss to my hand in a bird's bush."

"No one says that, ever. It doesn't even make sense."

"Damn it, and I spent hours grinding those metaphors against one another."

John opted to shut up at that point because talking with Jared was giving him a headache.

Jared choose to ignore John in turn, then looked at the M240, then back at the wall, then back at the machine gun. Then he pulled out his own flamethrower, a homemade affair that looked more likely to kill him in a giant fireball than drive off an acid-bleeding xenomorph.

And he pointed it at the water and pulled the trigger.

John was not amused. He was not amused and he was hot, surrounded by steam, and out-flanked by idiots. Stupid Jared. Stupid flamethrower. He cracked his knuckles.

Screams of panic from the gun nest gave way to hastily conceived and hastily executed orders. "Get some flash-bangs in there!"

Something moved in the mist, and there was the sound of flash-bangs going off. Not here, in the water, but near the machine gun.

"I'm blind! COVER FIRE!" And that would be the JSDF grunts getting defensive.

John used the sound of the gun to get his bearings and charged. He came out of the vapor cloud at the same time as Andy did, and as luck would have it, along an intersecting course. They smashed heads and landed well short of the nest unconscious.

Jared, however, was already in the nest and fully conscious, though the JSDF soldiers getting their asses kicked really, really wished he wasn't. Once the soldiers were dispatched, Jared took command of the M240, spraying the accursed barrier with 7.62mm slugs while John and Andy recovered from their impact.

Andy stepped on John's face to grab at Jared, but was thwarted by John twisting his foot and using the Goon as a springboard to tackle Jared. The pair crashed to the ground, Andy groaning in pain behind them. The gun's last bursts went wide, damaging a pair of hover gunships.

Andy flipped back to his feet and quickly grabbed the gun, only to find six JSDF soldiers dog-piling on him. Glancing to Jared for aid, he saw Jared and John locked in a struggle for dominance while more JSDF poured into the area.

Only seconds passed before the goons put down the JSDF reinforcements, and turned on one-another. John pulled out some 2x4s and put down Jared and Andy with a pair of skull-cracking impacts.

"There, now--" John looked up to see Shinji watching him with eyes the size of dinner plates. "Uh, hi."

"Hi," replied the Eva pilot, not moving.

The cicadas held their breath.

"they're noisy," Rei said from across the partition.

"It's a good thing this wall was reinforced. Pity about those VTOL, though," Misato replied.

Without the need of an introduction to preempt her voice, "Ha! That stopped them? They'll try again, trust me! And then, I'll be ready! OHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"

"Should I even ask?" Said Shinji.

"No."

Feeling the need to make conversation to help him ignore the pile of either dead or unconscious soldiers and two goons at John's feet. "Where do you get those things?"

"Lumberyard. Where else would I get them?" John tossed the wood away.

Then two more squads burst into the area, shoving Shinji to the floor and covering him with ten assault rifles. Three more squads drop over the far wall and pop out of the ground around John, wielding cattle prods and a few more machine guns.

To top things off, Kaji walked in. Then he did just what was expected of him--he took command of the situation. In short order, the goons were roused, the soldiers were cleared out, a new SAW was set up with additional armor, and Shinji was allowed to get his towel back into a decent place. Before too long, all five males were bathing peacefully in the pool.

Wait, did I just type 'peacefully?' We're still in _Goonvangelion_, sorry for the confusion.

"Not quite used to living in Japan?" Kaji asked John a short while later, pointing at his swimming trunks.

A shrug preceded the verbal response. "I'm used to communal showers, and I'm... adjusting, but we have our own bath in the apartment."

Kaji himself shrugged. Had any women been watching, there would have been a mass swooning. Actually, there probably would have been mass fainting at the sight of Shinji in a hot springs. "Well, you'll get used to it."

"Hm..."

"Don't you have hot springs in America?" Shinji asked.

"Well, we do, but they're treated more like swimming pools. No nudity and all that."

"Yeah, we're all from prudeville, USA," Jared said, suddenly lounging on a rock a few feet away from the Japanese men. Well, boy and man.

John's eye twitched as he noticed that Jared's trunks were now on the deck railing next to his towel. Damn sneaky... He was like one of those accursed ninja sometimes.

"Prudeville, where's that?" Shinji asked. "I thought you were from Washington."

"I mean America is full of religious whackos. Like the middle east but with even more guns and less political stability."

Knowing the goons on a professional basis, Shinji looked only mildly surprised. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, but there's... uh, certain... ahem. There's stabilizing forces that are... an, er, inherent part of the... political landscape." Jared's smile was so fake it immediately gave Kaji and Shinji stomach cramps.

Kaji raised an eyebrow to match his pained grimace. Shinji nodded, the expression on his face making it clear he had wandered too far down this particular conversational path and needed an out. Preferably one involving fire and antacid.

Apparently Jared only saw the twitching, and took it as encouragement. "But me, y'know, I'm all cultural and stuff." John snorted, which was totally the wrong thing to do, because it got Jared's hyperactive puppy-length attention. "Of course, there is an upside to all of this cultural shock... Rei's naked over there."

The twitching got worse. "Rei... had quite a few nude scenes. More than your prudish bitch. I'm not in any hurry."

At this, Kaji looked calculating.

"Yeah, Rei was kinda the slut of Eva." Jared suddenly dived into the water again. Maybe because a huge rock had just flown through the space his head had occupied a half-second ago. Maybe. Maybe he just really wanted to be on the other side of the pool where he would actually have time to see the murderous psychopath who had possessed John's body reach for another weapon.

Shinji was chanting, "I will not run away, I will not run away, I will not run away..." Even though the living shadow surrounded by a visible killing aura was telling his lower brain functions to run or die.

Then Jared splashed John, and it was _on_.

"Wait, how did he splash you from across the--" Kaji was instantly drowned in a dozen waves of water kicked up by the goons. For a moment, only his flailing hand was visible. Shinji had obeyed his 'flight' instincts and was already on the deck by the time Kaji crawled out of the frothing mess.

He was about to call in another machine gun squad when the water suddenly stopped flying. Kaji righted himself and checked on Shinji, who was crouched on the deck, watching the goons as a mouse would watch a hawk. Seeing the goons looking at each other murderously and shifting slowly into fighting stances, Kaji opted to retreat as well.

A dramatic wind blew across the spring, causing those still wet to shiver.

From the over the wall came Asuka's voice. "What the Hell is this tumbleweed doing here?"

The fight before him instantly forgotten, Jared called to his goddess. "Asuka-sama!"

"Stay away, you freak!" Came the reply.

"That's our tumbleweed..." John sighed.

"Hey, who's got the popcorn?" Andy asked.

For some reason, John and Andy looked at Shinji. "Oh, Jared left it in his Eva."

"Oops. Well, I guess this means we can't do this, then."

All three lowered their guards. Shinji sighed in relief. Jared started scaling the dividing wall with surprising speed.

"Jared!" Shouted Andy, John, Kaji, and Shinji.

BZZZZT!

His body was luminous, skeleton a shadow beneath his skin. He opened his mouth. "YEEEEAAAAARRRGGGHHH!" Then fell into the pool leaving a trail of smoke in the air.

Kaji poked the goon with a stick a few times, eliciting Asuka's name in delirious tones.

Shinji slipped back into the spring while John tied Jared off to some rocks at the far end of the pool.

Then Asuka's voice broke the 'peace' again. "Hey! We're short a bottle of shampoo."

John snapped his fingers. "No problem!"

"John? Hey, I didn't ask..."

Ignoring her grumbling, John slapped a bottle of shampoo into Shinji's hand. The young ace cocked his arm back to toss it over the wall when John stopped him and adjusted his aim after checking for wind.

"Okay, let it fly," John said.

Shinji chucked the bottle, which sailed over the wall in a graceful arch before--

"Whoa! Who threw that?!" Shouted Asuka.

"I-I did," Shinji said.

"Dumpkoff! You nearly hit me!"

"Damn!" John hissed.

Kaji rolled his eyes.

* * *

By the following day, the Angel had been secured in an underground bay back at NERV HQ. The Science Division was eagerly taking passive samples of the egg. For some reason, the Americans had actually showed up to work at something resembling their work hours, then came down to watch the goings-on. And piss off Ritsuko.

"Guys, please stop taunting the fetal Angel."

After they quit calling it names and demanding a fair fight, everybody calmed down just a little.

"What are you guys doing here, anyway?" Ritsuko asked when she had a moment to interrogate them on the catwalk. Where they had set up lawn chairs and were mixing some drinks.

"Wondering what you're going to _do_ with it, for one," Jared said.

All four glanced at the Angel embryo, still midnight-black behind the thick walls of its AV7 containment tank.

"No idea," Ritsuko said after a minute, "I had good money on the capture failing miserably and having to kiss the mountain goodbye."

Andy stood at attention and clicked his heals together, saluting. "I shall not fail you next time, Doctor!"

A drop of sweat the size of a fist rolled off the back of Ritsuko's head and splashed on the catwalk.

"It's funny..." John said.

"What?" Jared prompted.

"The Angel's embryonic form is almost exactly the same as the embryo of practically every Earthly creature... and it's eerily similar to that of we humans... Is it 'we Humans' or 'us Humans'?"

"We..." Ritsuko scowled, realizing she was helping him. "It took you this long to notice that?"

"Actually, we've known for a couple of years now, it just took a while for the topic to come up." Jared sipped his drink.

Ritsuko did a double-take. "Years?"

"HEY! It's _my_ job to spoil everything!" Andy cut in.

John's hand was halfway to his hidden flashy-thingy when Jared jumped up and walked to a workstation at the end of the catwalk. He came back with a fistful of paperwork. "No, Andy, your contract says that you are just supposed to play the part of the destructive psychopath with a knack for navigating the ventilation system."

Andy stopped his queued-up rant and snatched the papers out of Jared's hand. After reading the first page, "This isn't my contract! This is a lemon of a Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Care Bears, Card Captor Sakura, Dual, DragonBall Z, Gundam Wing crossover piece!"

Jared grinned evilly. "Wasn't I writing that?"

Andy glared at the doctor in disgust, while Jared gave her a wink and a saucy look of approval.

Then a pair of two-by-fours broke other their heads and distracted them, as well as Ritsuko. John seized the opportunity like a Californian realtor, ushering Jared and Andy from the wing without so much as a backward glance.

Ritsuko stared at the lawn chairs for a moment after they left. "I really, really, really, really, REALLY [HATE] those guys. But at least they didn't see this!" She triumphantly held up a small notebook. Upon the front a title in black could just be made out. _The Angel Compatability Project_.

Then a hand reached down from above and snatched the notebook out of the doctor's hand with an audible 'Yoink!'

Misato walked in a moment later and noted Ritsuko, breathing heavily, before shifting her gaze to the smoking pistol in her hands, and then to the bits of ceiling tiles on the floor. "I take it this is a bad time?"

Ritsuko was later seen on a Tokyo-3 street corner in a sandwich sign with "The End is Near" painted on the front and back.

* * *

Within a 'secure' conference room somewhere in NERV that no-one else was using now, John was yelling, the vein on his head about to explode. "ORDER! ORDER! I SAID SIT YO' ASS DOWN, BI-OTCHES!"

Andy finally stopped jumping around and got down off of the desk, and Jared let go of the overhead light he was swinging on. Both picked out actual chairs and sat down.

John straightened his shirt and composed himself. "In spite of some near-misses and almost fatal errors..." A glare was shot at the other two. "We actually managed to survive two episodes worth of Eva. Well done, gentlemen. But before we pat ourselves on the back--" He smirked as the two stopped patting their own backs. "We must prepare for what is to come."

"The day Tokyo-3 stands still?" Jared asked.

"Exactly," said John, "The lights go off, the place gets hot, Misato and Kaji get stuck in an elevator for three hours..." He stared into space, imagining what should have happened.

"We can rig an airborne aphrodisiac in the elevator," Jared offered.

John shook his head. "Too risky. We need a plan, we know what the Angel can do--"

"Actually, we only know how it will attack if presented with a very specific situation. It could spray acid if attacked from ground level or any number of feats," said Andy.

Jared and John blinked. John patted Andy on the head and offered him a bone-shaped biscuit.

"Err, right. I say we smuggle our Evas above ground before the whole place shuts down," said Jared.

"Smuggle? Smuggle?! It's not like we can stuff them under our jackets and tip-toe up 40 levels!" John pointed out.

Andy was still mysteriously in the grips of human rationale. "And we can't just sneak them out by piloting them. Giant robots are inherently... non-stealth."

Able to conceive of no more sophisticated response while in shock at Andy actually making sense, the other goons boggle. Convinced their 'friend' is possessed by some mysterious power, they plow on through their briefing.

"What we need is the biggest Ninja Vanish on the most grand of scales..." said Jared.

"What we need is to be up there practicing when SEELE cuts the power," mused John.

The possessed one spoke. "You know that they won't let all three of us up at the same time."

Jared got on top of his desk and pointed a commanding finger at Andy. "Then thou shalt be charged with leading the heavenly beauty Asuka--"

"And Rei... and bring Shinji while you're at it." John interrupted.

"--down through the passageways, unharmed to her Eva--"

Automatically correcting, "--their Evas."

"--Eva...s to." Jared turned to John. "HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT MY GOD MODE!"

"Oh, I dare all right."

The possessed Andy ducked into a ventilation duct to avoid the two clashing Americans. True, he liked a good brawl, but couldn't quite figure out the point of this one, and grew bored before even considering joining in.

* * *

Asuka stopped walking. Shinji and Rei nearly plowed into her, following her en route to the main platform. Andy neatly sidestepped the stumbling trio, halting next to Asuka, who glared at him. "What are you doing here?"

Andy glanced around largely empty sidewalk, then to the sign a block away that pointed to a subway entrance that could get them to NERV. "Heading to work," he said casually.

Asuka scoffed. More than two weeks had passed since her incredible piloting made it possible for NERV to capture an Angel alive and intact. And ever since they got back to Tokyo-3, the big loud American... well, the biggest, loudest American, had followed them around every time they weren't at home. If they split up, he either followed her or Shinji around. Since he spent more time with Shinji than her or Rei, Asuka assumed he wasn't as much of a pervert as his friends were. He insisted he had nothing better to do, but he was there, day in and day out. Watching from outside of the school. Walking next to them down sidewalks. Following them into stores. Showing up on the same trains. Annoying little, er, large pest.

She had shucked her Mini-MAGI once, to see if that would shake him, but didn't get half a block before it reappeared on her wrist. She dumped it behind a vending machine later that day, and it reappeared again after she tried on some skirts. Andy, naturally, had been hanging out in a nearby restaurant--one that offered a clear view of the clothing stores she had 'recovered' her Mini-MAGI in--and she confronted him, loudly. Someone called the cops, who took one look at the lug's I.D. and ordered him to take her back to Katsuragi. Her, the hero of NERV, who'd single-handedly bagged an Angel with no support! Okay, so maybe she had some help from the winching crew. And that creepy doctor that built the cage to hold the sucker. And so, yeah, the Angel _was_ just an egg, but damn it, didn't she deserve some more credit than this? Than being dragged halfway across town by Mucha of all people to get lectured by Katsuragi about keeping her Mini-MAGI on at all times and an Angel could attack at any time and blah, blah, blah.

Clenching her fist as Andy stood there, looking clueless but clearly in no mood to let them out of his sight, Asuka decided that she might have to break something now. She started counting off on her fingers. "First, you've been following us everywhere since we got back from Mount Asamayama, and today the Pervert and Psycho have completely disappeared, which--"

Shinji tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at two Evangelions facing off in the foothills on the other side of town.

"Okay. Two, Katsuragi is at work, and security has rotated our escort out this afternoon due to the testing, which leaves both us and you unattended, and they never do that; it's like leaving a toddler in a roomful of shiny red ICBM launch buttons within reach. Three, instead of taking advantage of this, you decide ON YOUR OWN to attend a sync test."

"Your point being?"

Asuka was going to pay him back for this headache by knocking out teeth. "Something is up."

Rei nodded. "indeed."

Shinji jumped on the bandwagon, and why wouldn't he? There were two girls on it already. "This is totally out of character for you. You three have something planned."

"and we will know what that is," Rei pressed, somehow her emotionless, uninflected monotone sounded threatening.

"Just spill it, Mucha. Maybe the authorities will go easy and just electrocute you." Asuka smirked.

Before anyone could utter so much as a word, the powerlines above them went silent, and the silenced echoed across the city as a wave of not-noise, followed by the faint clatter of backup generators kicking in at various locations.

Andy was more than a foot taller than Asuka. "You had to mention electricity, didn't you?"

Hey look, Asuka knows choke holds! "WHAT DID YOU IDIOTS DO?!"

Andy gasped, surprised at the grip holding his windpipe nearly shut. "IT... Is... Time..."

"Time for what?" Shinji asked.

Andy finally pulled free and jumped away from the circling EVA pilots.

"Time to play 'follow the Mad Mecha pilot to the Eva cages'."

Shinji and Asuka looked skeptical. Rei looked... at Andy. "Yeah. Right."

"Oh really? The city's power is out, NERV's generators are devoted to maintaining the MAGI, the other backups are off-line thanks to sabotage, an Angel is skittering across the landscape towards us and our Evas are thousands of feet beneath! If you think you can navigate the maze of ducts, passages, and catwalks down to the cages faster than I can, then be my guest! You go your way, it takes you until the Angel is here to rally the Evas. You follow me, you're at least at your Evas when Gendo starts manually setting the mecha up. SO WHO'S WITH ME?!"

Asuka gasped and repeated the only word that mattered, "What do you mean sabotage?"

Rei looked up from the NERV manual. "he does have more experience with the passages..."

"My father's manually setting them up?" Shinji echoed.

"No time to space out now, invertebrate. Time's a wasting. ONWARD!"

Asuka lingered for a few seconds pouting before she ran to catch up with the troop. With any luck, she'd kill this one single-handedly and put her depression out of mind for a while.

* * *

The two Evangelions already on the surface were hardly screwing around.

"Goldfish, this is Prairie Dog, do you read, over?"

An elegant, simple, effective plan for total and complete victory was being flawlessly executed.

"Roger that, Prairie Dog. Reading negative electrical readings in T-3, what's your read?"

The plan leaves nothing to chance, as failure equals the extermination of mankind.

"Roger that, Goldfish. Tokyo-3 has zero electrical activity. Begin operation Picket's Charge."

The Evas began to move with purpose, preparing to engage their fearsome enemy.

"Roger that, proceeding to intercept target Alpha, over and Out."

"Goldfish, who IS this Roger guy anyway?"

The last hope for Mankind, Ladies and Gentlemen. The _last_ hope.

* * *

Within a NERV elevator a familiar scene was taking place, one right out of a certain anime...

"Whoa... that can't be good," Kaji said to the dead lighting and the red emergency lights that had come on when the elevator stopped.

"Those... Americans! Oooh--!" Said Misato, the elevator's other occupant.

Remembering their hot springs antics, Kaji wouldn't have put setting up him and Misato past the trio. But Kaji was never one to pass on an opportunity to tweak his favorite Major. "What have they done now?"

Misato waved her hands at the elevator walls in lieu of using Japanese to explain herself. "This!"

Above and unknown to the two unwilling passengers, a tiny misting device started to release its deadly venom into the atmosphere. Misato and Kaji stared at each other for a few moments, then turned away, adjusting their clothing. At length, one of them spoke. "It's getting hot in here."

Kaji removed his jacket, wondering for just an instant if it was a safe thing to do. "You can say that again."

"It's getting hot in here."

Kaji didn't respond, inviting an uncomfortable silence to move in, make itself at home, and puke on the couch. Kaji began to chuckle, but not at the terrible metaphor. The whole situation was so obvious, so juvenile, so... _American_...

"What's so damn funny?" Misato snapped, adjusting her own jacket.

Kaji's chuckles gave way to burbling giggles, which looked strange coming from a guy like him, then into an all-out gale of laughter. When he turned to Misato, he stumbled and pitched into her. Misato grabbed Kaji, holding him by the shoulders. As she pushed him a few inches away, she realized where his head was resting.

Her voice throaty, "You... you... pervert..."

Kaji slowly stopped laughing, looking into Misato's eyes, which smoldered with passion. They leaned closer, intent on one another's gazes, completely ignoring the four low-light, battery powered cameras that were revealed by several sliding panels, slowly opening.

Well, you asked.

* * *

Elsewhere, a minor dispute was taking place.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE WE, BAKA?" Screamed Asuka.

If you just walked in, perhaps you're unfamiliar with our definition of 'minor.'

Andy's reply beat Rei by a full tenth of a second. "Sublevel D, Section 42A, Subsection R. Any other stupid questions from the peanut gallery?"

Said peanut gallery, from left to right in Andy's internal targeting grid looked at him with a glare, an impassive stare, and a pensive look.

"Uh... I think she meant how far are we from the Evas?" Said the pensive one.

Andy kicked at the grate under him with the abandon of a lobotomized electrician licking some mains wiring. "By my estimate, about halfway there, more or less. Now do as I do and don't touch anything!" He grumbled something far less polite and more about 'boring jobs' and certain morons under his breath as the grate gave way, dropping him down a vertical access shaft.

"We... aren't supposed to follow him down there, are we?" Shinji asked.

* * *

Meanwhile, the battle was joined!

Which is a phrase that makes exactly no sense all by itself.

Anyway!

Eva clashed with Angel, hurtling dust and small buildings into the air left and right. The Angel was hardly different that its canonical cousin: a spider-like thing with a body covered in dozens of colored patterns resembling the classical Egyptian stylized eye. It's eight legs were comically long, double-jointed (to the surprise of the attacking pilots), and blacker than black. It held quite a maneuverability advantage over the Evas, appearing to bend the laws of physics as it fended off the assaults. The Evas were whole, however, a testament to the goons' intensive anime training regimen.

The battle cries were the underlined period to the above assertion that the goons are utterly bat-shit insane.

"YEEE-HAAAW!

"Prairie Dog, how is that helping our battle?"

"Goldfish, keep the chatter to a minimum, please."

The Evas separated in the wake of the Angel's last attack and drew back in a zig-zag pattern. Where they passed one another, the Angel kicked at the nearest unit, aiming to bowl both over in a single attack. Almost as if they were waiting for it, Prairie Dog jumps to one side of the kick, twisting around the limb in mid-air while charging a Kamehameha. Goldfish drops into a baseball style slide, drawing its progressive knife and rebounding off the ground in a bee line towards the Angel.

In the blink of an eye, the Angel drew back three legs to defend itself. Prairie Dog let loose with the Kamehameha, forcing the Angel to brace itself and collapse its AT Field into a short-range shield to block the attack. Goldfish aimed for the biggest gap at a full sprint.

Prairie Dog disappeared.

The AT Field evaporated. A leg slammed into Goldfish, knocking him away. The progressive knife tumbled through the air, ignored by all...

Except for Prairie Dog, who appeared in a crouch behind the three legs, caught the blade, and slashed at the Angel's central body.

Which wasn't there. A leg hit him from the side a nanosecond later, sending him into a conveniently placed hill made of forgiving solid basalt.

"I told you!" Goldfish shouted angrily.

Gouts of acid were already flying through the air. The Evas were on their feet immediately and charging... in the opposite direction.

"We need backup!" Goldfish added.

The Evas continued running, cutting a curving path around the rubble that used to be a freeway interchange between the Angel's point of origin and the main shaft the pilots had climbed in the original series. Not too many buildings nearby, and no shelters; a perfect place to stage their last stand. Hopefully, it wouldn't be their _last_ stand.

The duo completed their half circle to close in on the Angel at close to four hundred miles per hour. Again the Angel countered with positively unnatural speed.

"KAMEHAMEHA!" Shouted both pilots.

The blasts were so massive that the Evas were slammed to a halt and the Angel froze in its tracks. AT Field battled AT Field as all three combatants poured on the power.

Some NERV and JSDF personnel observing the event remarked that some welding shields would be really handy, what with a miniature sun shining in the middle of the city and all.

The Angel moves first, deflecting the beam to one side while it dodged the other way. The lance of energy, before it is cut off by the Evas, reaches a set of foothills four miles outside of Tokyo-3, annihilating the hills and continuing out over the Pacific until it parts ways with the curve of the Earth and reaches into space.

"It didn't work!" Prairie Dog hollered in panic.

"I didn't know it could do that..." Goldfish stared.

Neither did the smart thing, which was get behind cover. The Angel had enough time to recover from its dodge and jump into the air while the Evas reigned in their energy. While sight-seeing, it had enough time to spit out more acid.

Then, "IT'S EATING THROUGH MY ARM!"

"WE'RE GONNA DIE!"

It nearly hit them.

"OH, WHAT A WORLD!"

"THE BURNING! THE BURNING!"

I said 'nearly.'

Prairie Dog pouted. "Mou... You're ruining all of our fun..."

Only celebrity power could save this scene now. If only we had Twoflower here to make a guest appearance...

* * *

Meanwhile, where there were only agitated Evangelion pilots trapped in the ductwork...

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MORE OR LESS? WE WERE JUST HERE FIVE MINUTES AGO!"

"Vent navigation is not an exact science," Andy said

"IT'S NOT A SCIENCE AT ALL!" Asuka said, hoping volume would keep any of the stupid from getting on her.

"So then why are you asking for such details? If you want scientific answers, you ask John, you want perverted answers, you ask Jared, YOU WANT BIG EXPLOSIONS, YOU ASK ME!"

"I WANT TO GET TO MY EVA NOW, MANIAC!"

Andy, not familiar with the art of dealing with an upset female, raised his finger to continue his 'lecture,' and was kicked right through the side of the duct by a furious Asuka.

The three pilots listen as the wrenching sound of Andy tearing a hole in the sheet metal gave way to the quiet whistling of his body falling fifty stories straight down a vertical shaft. This was followed by many loud, painful noises and screams of pain.

Then his voice was faintly to the trio. "...Found it..."

Asuka blinked.

All three rushed up to the hole and leaned out to see what 'it' happened to be. Ritsuko's voice greeted them. "Oh there you are. Where are the others?"

"The Red Haired Demon cast me into this foul pit, and now I fear the others are at her mercy."

Indeed, Shinji was holding Asuka from jumping down the shaft after Andy, and struggling. "Rei... little help here?"

Rei grabbed Shinji in a bear hug, helping to send all three through the hole.

"That's not what I meant!"

Asuka cut loose with her battle cry halfway down. "BANZAI!"

"sorry, ikari," Rei whispered in the boy's ear.

A pale hand shot out and caught something along the shaft's wall. Shinji was jerked to a stop, while Asuka slipped through his fingers and hit her target with laser-guided precision.

"AAAAAAHHH!" Screamed Andy in greeting.

Ritsuko, standing a decent distance away from Andy (ten meters), watched with frank approval. Behind her, the technicians preparing the Evas for launch exchanged looks, as it was time for a new betting pool.

Asuka rolled off the pancaked goon and bowed before the doctor as if she'd just dismounted the parallel bars.

A rope ladder fell out of the shaft that had disgorged two ballistic Eva pilots, and a pale Rei and paler Shinji climbed down to the floor without incident.

Andy rose to his feet and shook his head several times. Eyes still spinning in their sockets, he pointed an accusing finger at the wall, though his question clarified to whom he was directing his question. "Not that I'm complaining or anything, but where did you find the ladder?"

Shinji looked at Rei, who just ignored him. "Ayanami had it," he offered. "There's a permanent service ladder in the main shaft. She hooked onto it and we climbed down."

Andy gave Rei a look normally employed by bad actors playing the part of a sadistic Nazi torturer.

"i am merely using the technique that you, waddell, and genoni have demonstrated," Rei finally said.

The muscles around Andy's left eye twitched. "Oookay, Let's get MECHANIZED!"

No one moved.

"Everyone get into their plug suits and prepare to sync with your Evas," Ritsuko said.

The pilots burst into motion.

Andy shifted his glare to Ritsuko in turn.

"Oh, grow up," she said, returning to her Manual Launch Checklist.

* * *

Topside, Goldfish and Prairie Dog were still alive and kicking. Also running and dodging. Lots of dodging. They had trapped the Angel in between two beam blasts, but it took only seconds to break free and rush Goldfish like an SUV plowing into a compact. Prairie Dog interrupted the charge by breaking a massive steel beam over the Angel's central body. It did no permanent harm to the Angel, but Prairie Dog at least had some acid to dodge. Meanwhile, Goldfish got clear and rolled to his feet at the western corner of the freeway interchange where their battle had stalled.

As Goldfish studied the massive area full of rubble and parked vehicles, and flanked by short buildings, four Evangelions climbed out of egress portals around him in a semi-circle.

"IT'S TIME TO PARTY!" Andy bellowed over the comm. Then Unit-04 wing's snapped out and the Eva took the skies like a true Angel of Death. How this helped the battle wasn't explained.

Shinji, Rei, and Asuka fanned out to the north and south to avoid making themselves into one big target. Prairie Dog went flying from one of the Angel's kicks, and settled Unit-03 gracefully into a crouch next to Goldfish, completing a half-circle blocking the Angel's progress to the west. A steep hill rose from the edge of the demolished interchange, blocking off that route, and to the south the shorter buildings grew thick and the roads narrowed.

The Angel held its position, fidgeting as it seemed to be weighing its options--through the Evas, over the hills, or between the buildings and along a curving route to its destination with its flank exposed to the four machines of death.

And then there was Andy, the embodiment of flying doom overhead.

"What are we up against?" Asuka demanded quickly.

"Fast-moving, shoots acid, long legs, bad attitude. Wants the main access shaft back there," Goldfish jerked Unit-05's thumb over its shoulder. "Didn't you guys get briefed by Misato?"

"No-one's seen her. Ritsuko told us to talk to Commander Ikari, and _he_ said to talk to you two," Shinji supplied.

"do you have a plan?" Rei asked simply.

Meanwhile, Prairie Dog had spied a tanker truck. More specifically, he had read the warning on the back of the truck, which made it perfectly clear--in English--that this tank held ninety-nine percent pure Hydrogen Peroxide. Another tanker, not far away, had similar warnings on the read identifying its contents as ninety-nine percent pure Anhydrous Ammonia.

Chemists and fans of rocketry should be getting excited right now.

"All I need is some silver," Prairie Dog muttered to himself in the plug. "But..."

"Prairie Dog, come in. We've got reinforcements and need to take this ugly out, pronto." Goldfish said over the comm.

"Eureka!" Shouted Prairie Dog.

"He's dead, what about him?" Goldfish asked.

"Wait," Unit-01 cocked its head mimicking its pilot, "Who is Prairie Dog?"

"I think it's the Pervert." Asuka replied.

"And John is Goldfish? Did we all get code-names? What's mine?"

Prairie Dog ignored him and pointed at Andy. "Andy, put up a gun nest on that mountain!"

Unit-04 drew its pistols as it banked away, ignored by the Angel. "Aye-aye!"

"He didn't get a code name?"

"Prairie Dog, what's going on?"

"We're making a bomb. That thing's smart, but probably not smart enough to figure out what we're up to and prevent it from getting blown to pieces. Shinji tosses the tanker on the right, while Asuka tosses the tanker on the left."

"I see," said Asuka, spying the vehicles. "But we need a catalyst."

Goldfish quickly added, "Prairie Dog, the words 'bomb' and 'blown to pieces' do _not_ belong together."

"Roger that, Goldfish. And as for a catalyst? We don't need a catalyst."

Andy's voice came on, "You're pretty scary when you imitate Doc Brown, you know that?"

Goldfish and Rei dashed to the south, expanding the net, and took cover behind a short building. The Angel started to rush the remaining Evas, and then Andy opened up on it.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"I'm not sure what's louder," Prairie Dog said as he held his position, deflecting legs, "His laughing, or the frikkin' gun he's shooting."

Goldfish, meanwhile, took to his task like an enthusiastic fanboy. Acid was flying, Prairie Dog might die at any second now, and Rei's Evangelion was next to him--life couldn't be better. Unless that ugly spider-Angel was dead. He watched in awe as Rei emptied her whole pistol at it, dropping the useless gun once it clicked on empty. The weapon pulverized a delivery truck at their feet.

"_Now!_" Prairie Dog shouted, getting up from weathering another barrage.

Goldfish slipped out and charged up a Mazenko, almost dropping the forming energy ball when he saw Unit-00 mimicking his actions exactly.

Andy was quick on the draw, and the Angel shifted its AT-Field to deflect Andy's Final Flash. Goldfish and Rei laid in with their energy beams and brought the Angel to a halt. Then Prairie Dog rolled under its legs and launched a Kamehameha at the exposed belly. The Angel curled into a ball under the fire, like a spider dropped in a candle's flame. Contracted, but did not give up.

Then Asuka and Shinji threw the tanker trucks onto the Angel.

Under more 'normal' circumstances, the Angel would have simply brushed aside such a laughable attack. However, it was now putting all of its energies into blocking the Fire of Death four Evangelions were shooting at it, and had nothing left to intercept the large but apparently inert projectiles inbound for the top of its head.

It could shoot a bit of acid at them.

It did.

Then fifty tons of improvised rocket fuel exploded right on top of its body.

When the Angel shifted its AT-Field to try and block the explosion, four energy blasts pierced it and added to the inferno.

A visible distortion ripped through the air, marking the passage of an immense shock wave that kicked up dust and debris almost half a dozen kilometers in every direction.

Goldfish expected the shock wave to do little more than tickle his Eva's armor, and was quite surprised when he was hit with what felt like a sledgehammer wielded by Heracles. Unit-05 and 00 were literally blown off of their feet and sent airborne.

Asuka and Shinji crouched and focused their AT-Fields to block the blast, and weathered the storm stoically.

Andy was about to break out his happy dance when the shock wave knocked over Unit-04. Cursing, he righted himself, then resumed the dance while the echoes danced around the valley.

At ground zero, Unit-03's legs were sticking out of the ground.

Goldfish righted himself slowly. "Is everyone dead?"

"Ya, mon," Prairie Dog replied.

Unit-02 and 01 each took a leg and slowly pulled 03 out of the ground. The plug immediately popped and Jared jumped onto the shoulder of Asuka's Evangelion.

Where he began to loudly sing the 'Ode to Joy' chorus from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Within the plug, Asuka shook her head in exasperation. Unit-05 and 00 picked themselves up easily, and silently walked to the center of the crater where there was absolutely no sign the Angel ever existed.

"HQ, this is Goldfish. Target Alpha is silent."

"Genoni, quit using those stupid call signs. No one authorized them."

"The Major didn't complain," he balked.

"The Major is trapped in an elevator on level fifty-two, and I'm sure she's not pleased with your stupid call signs!"

"Is she going to be this grumpy _every_ time we save Tokyo-3?" Andy asked over the open line.

"Get some fresh air," the 'good' doctor ordered tersely. "Before your brain _entirely rots out your skull_."

"In a minute," said Andy. He resumed his victory dance, mindful of the rules restricting him from spiking an N2 mine in celebration. Damn NERV, always crimping his style.

Shinji sat Unit-01 down next to the inert Unit-03, disembarked, and watched the sun set. Rei did likewise, parking her unit on the other side of 03, which prompted John to follow suit. Asuka 'landed' her unit as well, uppercutting Jared when he tried to grope her.

* * *

End Chapter 7

**A note from the author:** I have been waiting _ten years_ to open an Evangelion fanfic chapter with the words 'Naked Rei clones.' Okay, technically I was _procrastinating_ for ten years, but my only concern now is the womenfolk. There should be enough naked Shinji to balance everything out in the coming chapters, so we're cool. Right?


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** We're getting into multi-fandom territory in a seriously unpleasant way here. Massive plot-driven OOC behavior ahead. It only gets worse from here on in.

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 8: Of Chicks and Evas / Enter the Feline

* * *

Toji, being a boy of fourteen that could barely spell the word 'architecture,' found himself in the subjectively odd position of being impressed by it. Simply because he lacked refined tastes didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the matter, especially standing within such an extreme example as this. A mixture of hard lighting aimed at his eyes with laser precision combined with vast dark spaces gave the office the impression of a deep, mysterious space existing in a realm beyond his understanding. A fitting place for Gendo Ikari to name his office.

"So... you've agreed?" Said the man himself from behind an immense black desk carved out of nightmares.

Toji would never be accused of being a wise man, but even a complete idiot would know better than to give Gendo Ikari wiggle room in any deal. "Let me make this clear. I just want to make sure my sister is getting the best care possible, got it? I'll be a pilot if that's what it costs."

Gendo smiled over the black desk, lowering the room's temperature by several degrees and forcing Toji to fight off the urge to shiver. "That's the plan."

* * *

The goons were playing cards in their Lair of Evil--I mean... uh, apartment. Yeah, the goons were playing cards in their La--apartment. Jared was loosing, it was dark outside because the sun was going to rise in two hours, and a discussion was underway.

"You know, I just realized something," said Jared.

A helpful reminder: Just because a discussion is underway does not mean it is productive, meaningful, or even marginally sane.

"What? That we should be getting our asses to bed?" Andy proposed over his cards.

"That you're probably going to shoot your own foot off at tomorrow's synch test if we don't get some sleep?" John added, which made one wonder why they didn't ditch Jared's little game and get some shuteye themselves.

Jared adjusted his own cards, uncertain of why lizards were climbing on them. "No, Asuka's already kissed Shinji. Hm... and I'm hallucinating."

John threw his cards down on the table. "No! NO!!! It's too late for this! I am going to bed." Deep sigh. "Sorry you're hallucinating."

"That's okay," Jared replied.

Faintly irritated, "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the cabbit on your head."

"Oh."

John left the table, pausing in the hallway to add, "Besides, they don't actually kiss until episode 15 in Eva."

"Right. Don't forget to say hi to Rosy Palm and her five sisters for me," Jared called in reply.

John stopped dead in his tracks. "Take that back."

Jared merely chuckled.

"EEEWW!!!" Andy shouted, jumping to his feet and pointing at Waddell as if the younger man had murdered his wife. "That's _IT_, you're going DOWN!"

Then Jared did, tackled by Andy. He didn't stay down long, quickly kicking the larger goon off of him. In another remarkably small fraction of a second, he was back on his feet, deflecting a kick from Andy. The kick hit the couch, flipping it over.

Jared's retort was a quick jump-spinning kick that Andy rolled under and away from while Jared's foot turned a nice table lamp into sparking shrapnel. Andy launched a flurry of punches at the smaller target, who fell back from the barrage. Jared finally jumped the overturned couch and threw several magazines from the coffee table at Andy's face, stopping the flow of punches. Andy snarled in response, then threw his own spinning kick at Jared, who ducked it with a manic grin. The kick snapped a floor lamp in half. Jared grabbed the small wooden chair next to it and swung at Andy. Andy tore the chair out of Jared's hands and tossed it over his shoulder, where it flew onward to hit the kitchen wall.

John stood stoic in the eye of hurricane Stupid, an island of calm reason, and said, "Guys."

Andy snatched up another table lamp--this one made of solid iron--and tried to bash out Jared's brains. Jared's brains were having none of it and he grabbed their card table and used it like an immense pair of nunchuks to keep Andy's illuminated weapon at bay. Andy was furious, as Jared's defense looked even cooler than it sounded.

When the two finally separated, Jared threw the table at Andy, who demonstrated his ability to apply a useful tactic in any situation and ducked. The card table crashed through the balcony's glass doors.

"Guys!"

Andy brought the lamp overhead like a club, and out of nowhere Jared grabbed a metal chair. The two objects met like swords, with a mental-rending _clang!_

The lamp snapped off at the impact point, the end sailing by John's unsmiling face to embed itself in the wall. Jared's bent chair made for Andy's brain at Mach 2.0, and was deflected only at the last possible second by the remains of the lamp. Sparks flew from this impact.

The noise left John's ears ringing. "That's it!"

He jumped into the fray.

Literally.

His flying kick sent Andy into the balcony doors, the remains of which shattered into a million pieces upon impact. Then John made the mistake of actually launching a fist at Jared, instead of leading with a two-by-four. He immediately found himself flung bodily into the couch, which he skipped off of like a pitched stone hitting still water, and crashed into the lower counters in the kitchen. The cupboard doors exploded open, and every dish the goons owned rocketed off their shelves.

When the cacophony cleared, all three were standing and glaring at one another, and the apartment was quite thoroughly trashed.

Also, Misato was standing in the entrance, looking like a very pissed off woman with military command responsibilities who had been rudely woken in the middle of the night by a bunch of violence-prone idiot neighbors. "GET YOUR ASSES IN BED!!! EVEN _INDECENT_ PEOPLE ARE ASLEEP AT THIS HOUR!!!"

The goons wisely opted to drop to the floor like sacks of flour and sleep where they lay, lest they incur the wrath of their Tactical Commander and find her offering them a cigarette and blindfold--or was that a tanto?

* * *

Rather unsurprisingly, morning came. Right in the morning time, even. The goons made their way to Misato's for breakfast, having convinced Shinji to invite them the evening after they killed the Ninth Angel. Well, no convincing was really necessary, the lad invited them over right out of the blue, then used them as human shields when Asuka went ballistic.

The trio could hardly hold it against him then--they were too stunned by the hospitality the reserved pilot bequeathed upon them to even notice--and they couldn't very well now, what with no caffeine in their systems. Heck, Jared was wearing his T-shirt over his bare feet when Shinji opened the door to find all three standing outside Misato's apartment.

"Good morning," Jared said as if the words were doused in ash.

For a moment Shinji had the irrational notion the goon was seconds away from whipping out some pistols and laying waste to the apartment. He took in the bags under Jared's eyes especially. "Good morning. Come inside." He stood aside while Jared tripped on his shirt, and had to fight his way back to his feet and put it on correctly.

Andy came in next, bumping into the walls of the entry, nearly knocking over Shinji. His sudden loss of eyesight was clear--he was wearing John's glasses. Jared finally took pity on the man and plucked them off his nose. Andy looked around like a wild animal loosed in a new cage and took off an imaginary coat, offering his empty hand to a puzzled Shinji.

"Shinji! What is all that racket?!" Asuka yelled from somewhere in the apartment.

"Our neighbors are here--mmph!"

"Sorry." Andy dropped the hand covering most of Shinji's face. Behind him, mostly hidden by Andy's mass, John finished adjusting his frames.

"Uh, it's all right," Shinji turned to lead them to the kitchen.

"Don't you _DARE_ come in here!" Asuka shouted from her bedroom.

Jared perked up, his nose pointing into the apartment like an alert dog's. John grabbed his arm and reminded Jared to put on his shoes. Jared did so, then scowled as he realized he was supposed to have them off anyway and grumbled as he removed them and set them with the others in the entry.

At the breakfast table, a lackluster Chinese fire drill was required to get the seating arrangements down. Asuka was flanked by her human shields--Misato and Shinji, with the armed one between her and The Pervert.

As the food was served, she attempted to communicate with the least-insane one. "Why did you guys come over here for breakfast?"

John sighed. "Our apartment is filled with Dew after that run-in with the ninth. It turns out the stuff is excellent for keeping you awake after those draining ki techniques."

"And the Spineless One invited us," Andy added.

"Nice of him," Jared said with an obviously fake smile.

Shinji rubbed the sore spot on his head, where he was sure hair would never grow again.

Asuka ignored all this, and scowled. "But _I_ wanna ki technique..."

"THAT REMINDS ME!" Jared said at a volume designed to cut through the distracting din of a rock concert.

John rubbed at his forehead, ears ringing. "Now that you woke the fucking neighbors, what do you want to say?"

Jared entered Dramatic Pose #4, putting his leading foot on the table. The others scrambled to remove their food, lest he infect it. Imperiously, Jared began, "I have the most excellent of excellent ideas!"

John wolfed down his eggs and toast. "God help us."

"This is going to be bad," Andy said, consuming his breakfast in one bite.

Jared bumbled and blustered onward, "--a Battle Royal for all of the active pilots, allowing us to test our skills and finally settling the Eternal Question: Who gets to sleep with Asuka!"

_Crash!_ Said the plate that hit Jared in the side of the head.

Asuka dropped her hand from the follow-through and sipped at her orange juice. "Hentai."

John spied the orange juice, and twitched, staring.

"What?" Asuka persisted, glass in hand.

John blinked, slowly, as if seeing a ghost. "Aaanyway, we need to get to NERV, and--"

Jared sprang off of the floor as if launched by a catapult and returned to Dramatic Pose #4 as if nothing had happened. "WHO'S WITH ME?!!"

"No one," John answered.

"I am!" Andy put in.

Andy and John each looped an arm around Jared and hauled him out of the apartment. After the door closed on their backs, Asuka left for her room.

Shinji poked at his eggs. "Misato-san?"

Misato set her beer down. "Yes?"

Shinji switched to a whisper. "Do you know if Asuka is a natural redhead?"

Misato winked at the boy. "Trust me, she is. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it's nothing, maybe just the lighting in this room."

"I did put new bulbs in yesterday."

"That must be it."

Breakfast was completed in silence.

* * *

Asuka's fingers rested lightly on the trigger portion of her hand grips. In battle, her fists were always wrapped around the stanchions in a white-knuckled death grip. The feel of the metal, curiously warm, was lost on her in the moments of soaking wet terror. Yet it was there, whenever she was within her Eva, a part of the metal cocoon which kept her safe and smited her enemies at her whim.

Something constant, in this world gone mad.

A few weeks ago, three Americans appeared in one of Tokyo-3's parks. Not 'hid from security sweeps.' Not 'wandered out of shelters.' They literally stumbled out of thin air during an Angel attack. Now they were also Evangelion pilots. Skilled pilots, who had learned to shoot fireballs with their Evas. They weren't even fourteen! What the _Hell_ was wrong with reality?!

Her grip on the trigger shifted. The gun held tight by Unit-02 fired its last round down the outdoor range, punching a hole the size of a compact car in the last target.

And the Firing Range was something else that made her skin crawl. Why not do this stuff in a simulator? It was horribly wasteful. Computing power was cheap, and this place seemed almost custom-made to let the goons show off.

Unit-02 responded to her commands easily as she had it set the gun down and look at the trashed targets down range.

"Hmm..."

It had occurred to her, more than once, that the presence of a firing range gave the goons an idea that had no merit until they vaporized that first row of hills.

She smirked.

Unit-02 dropped into a stance familiar to fans of Dragonball Z.

It was also familiar to the bridge bunnies within the testing Control Center.

Asuka's comm. came to life with a panicked shout. "Pilot Sohryu, what are you _doing?!_"

Asuka was already starting her battle cry, "KAMEHAMEHA!!!"

"Asuka!" Shrieked Shinji from the surfacing Unit-01, "NO!"

Nothing happened, if you didn't count the lone tumbleweed that blew across the range. And the appropriately-sized sweat drop that rolled down the back of Unit-02.

"Um. Sorry... Shinji?"

Another tumbleweed rolled by.

"You know what?" Ritsuko said over the comm., "We're done for today."

* * *

"So you'll have to be nice for the new pilot," Ritsuko said, leaning back in her chair.

Her office was neither dirty nor small, but it was a cluttered space that forced the goons to stand almost shoulder-to-shoulder to remain in the same room for their little briefing. After ranting at them for an hour for 'encouraging' Asuka's 'little show' on the Eva Firing Range, she had pulled out a folder and switched to her Ominous Voice to warn them the pilot ranks would shortly be swelling by one.

John and Andy listened thoughtfully and stoically, respectively. Jared was half-drooling, half-frowning. He couldn't quite look up her skirt because the desk cut off his line of sight as he ducked down. He sipped at the drool once she paused, apparently to gloat. "That's what you called us down here for?"

She shut the folder she had been reading and grabbed her coffee mug. "Well, this and something else, actually."

"This pilot wouldn't happen to be one Toji Suzuhara, would it?" John asked casually.

Ritsuko sat up and spewed her spiked coffee all over Jared, who didn't even notice, only frowning slightly more. "What do you mean by that? You don't know him, do you?!"

John laced his fingers together in a very Gendo-esque manner. "Oh, we know all right..."

Jared jumped ahead to some place this wasn't originally leading. "So, you want us to train him?"

"NO! God no. Just..." She looked helplessly at the least-excitable one. "John?"

"We won't hurt him."

All eyes shifted to Jared, as he began to whine like a kicked puppy.

"Shut yer ass up." John snapped. Jared did as he was told. "We'll keep an eye out for the guy."

"What about his girlfriend?" Jared added.

John sighed. "We aren't--"

"Didn't ask you," Jared interrupted.

"Who might that be?" Ritsuko asked.

Jared slammed his hands down on Ritsuko's desk, miraculously finding the only open space without looking. "Don't fuck with me, doctor!"

Ritsuko picked up her mug again, taking a measured sip while looking at Jared over the rim. "Why would I want to?"

Jared blinked. "Er... quite. Well, what about his sister?"

"We're taking care of her."

Jared's eyes narrowed.

Ritsuko sipped her coffee again and made a face. "Anything else?"

Jared folded his arms over his chest. Behind him, Andy mirrored the action. Both sniffed the air snootily.

The doctor sighed and waved at the door. "All right, get out."

"What was the other thing?" John said, not budging.

"Out!"

Andy ignored the shouting doctor, selected a vent, and disappeared into it with a 'whoosh' noise.

"Andy!" John shouted after his friend.

"Your turn," Jared said, not moving to help. He watched, plainly amused, as John cursed and dived into the vent in hot pursuit.

Jared sighed, looking the doctor in the eye for the first time in living memory. She drew a deep breath and watched as his eyes did not waver from her own. "Can I help you?"

"What's the other thing?"

"Right... right." Ritsuko set her mug back on her desk. "Well, remember I said was working on a less obtrusive interface for your Mini-MAGI?"

"Of course."

Ritsuko snorted derisively. He'd been listening to her cleavage at the time. "Well, I've come up with something that should do the job. A little attachment with a communicator to provide audio work. A full set of programs rounds out the system's functionality, and it works in wireless mode 24/7, so you can communicate with NERV even if the power is out."

Something slipped out under his breath, sounding like, "Like that's useful _now_..."

"I heard that. Anyway, we will begin some testing on them tomorrow."

"I can test one," he said as if stating the obviousness of the sky being blue.

"Sure you can."

He grinned. "Really, I'm good at pointing out other flaws in other people's work."

"I'm sure you are." Ritsuko's eyes were already drifting back to her paperwork.

"And perks in women's figures."

She sighed again. It was disquieting when he _didn't_ ogle her like a piece of meat. She grabbed a Mini-MAGI from her desk drawer, a model identical to his except for gray trim instead of black. "If I give you one, will you leave?"

He pinned the grin from earlobe to earlobe. "Yesss."

John's voice echoed out of the vent. "We want one too!"

Jared swiped the offered device from Ritsuko. "Suckers! Only the Enlightened One receives the Lucky Prototype!"

In an effort to change things up, Andy barged through the door, preparing to throw a Gallat-Gun. Jared tucked the device into his pocket and posed with his own move.

"GALLAT GUN FIRE!!!"

"KAMEHAMEHA!!!"

"You know, I'm really happy that doesn't work," John said from the ventilation.

"So am I," said Ritsuko, relieved. "Now leave."

In a poof of cheesy Power Ranger quality special effects smoke, the three goons disappeared.

Sort of. Ritsuko watched them through the dissipating, poor-quality smoke, running down the far end of the corridor, their voices echoing back.

"Damn, this thing's long!" Shouted Jared.

"Andy, if you were faster, we would be out of range by now!" Howled John.

"Shut up and MOVE!!!" Blared Andy.

"Baka," Ritsuko idly commented.

* * *

Toji picked at his food lifelessly. As he was sitting in a NERV cafeteria, and the food was indeed cafeteria food, his lack of enthusiasm appeared almost normal. But then there was a dull light in his eyes, signaling a mind heavily weighing his choices of the last few days, particularly those made before that devil, Commander Ikari.

The lifelessness expressed in his movements was mirrored in his subdued surroundings, lending everything an almost _Eva_ tin, but not emo. No, that would be going to far. Just then, something interrupted his musing with a metallic _ting!_

Looking at the object laying on the table, "What the--? A screw?"

Ting. Ting. Ting.

NERV's newest Eva pilot had just enough time to realize this was Not Good before a cry split the air with its fury. "TOJI SUZUHARA, PREPARE TO DIE!"

Toji did not posses a lifetime of martial arts training, but his grade school Judo training told him to roll out of the way and he obeyed but a half of a second before a bokken cut the table he'd been sitting at into two pieces.

"Who the fuck are you?!" Toji shouted, raising his fists. He didn't really expect an answer, but felt compelled to demand one anyway. Likewise, he didn't expect to fight off someone who could shatter a metal table with a wooden sword using only his fists, but instincts were instincts.

The massive man who had interrupted his introspective ingestion dusted himself off. From the vent he'd fallen--or simply jumped--out of, Toji guessed correctly. He was easily two meters tall, with hands big enough to palm a basketball with ease. His hair looked like it won a battle against not just his own comb, but all combs, perhaps even the ur-comb of all combs. Then it spoke, as if nothing violent had just happened. As if he wasn't standing on the remains of a table and Toji's lunch, holding a bokken like some warped vision of a character from an old samurai flick. "Hmm? Oh, it's you. Good reflexes, dude. We may have something to work with after all."

Toji followed that as far as 'good reflexes' and had to reboot his brain. "What? Who are you?!"

Not that he expected an answer, of course, but he hardly expected what he got.

Another American, nearly as tall but all bony joints and sinewy muscle, kicked open the main doors to the cafeteria and pointed at random, screaming, "THAT FOOD IS MADE OUT OF CLONED HUMANS!"

Several dozen pairs of eyes locked onto the crazy American, who held up an official NERV badge. "I should know!" The madman continued, "I'm the kitchen inspector!"

Let it be known that the sound of a cafeteria full of office bunnies spitting out their food simultaneously is NOT a noise you ever want to hear again.

"What?!" Toji managed to shout over the din.

A third American dashed into the room, hitting the tall one by the door with a bit of wood before leaping onto a table and holding up two items. In authoritative voice, he announced, "John Genoni, NERV Intelligence. I would like you all to please look at this pen right here."

Everyone did. Everyone except for Toji, who glanced in the direction of the kitchen. Where these guys _really_ kitchen staff? Maybe that would explain the craziness.

The tall one said something just before a bright red light flashed throughout the room. Toji looked back to John, who was putting away a NERV badge and a pen while continuing in his haughty Authority Voice. "Someone was testing a sonic device that emits ultra-low frequency waves, and accidentally pointed it at the cafeteria, causing the mess, but it won't happen again."

In violation of every law known to God and Toji, everyone else nodded and went about the business of cleaning up. John led the tall American to the taller, bulkier American with the wooden sword.

Toji, fists still raised, shifted his stance to guard against all three of the weird Americans. The one with the glasses appeared to be capable of brainwashing people in record time. The other two...

John glared at the other dazed Americans. "Andy, I thought I told you not to do the Kuno Entrance. And Jared, that was just in bad taste."

The huge one, Andy looked completely clueless as he stole Toji's question. "What Kuno Entrance?"

"What was in bad taste?" The thin one, Jared asked.

Toji fought down the urge to answer that for him. Instead, a more important question came to mind, one he had been asking silently, and out loud, in various forms, ever since the big guy ruined his lunch. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! WHO ARE YOU GUYS?!"

John answered, "We are merely people who know. I am John. The stupid-looking one is Andy, and the idiot is Jared."

Which told Toji nothing he didn't already know. Useful information might have been on its way, but as John opened his mouth, some boards hit him on the head. Boards held by Andy and Jared.

Jared smiled, put his lumber... somewhere. "What my associate was trying to say was that we are from the Intelligence division."

"Must be a small department," Toji quipped. He was certain that if they were going to kill him--deliberately or accidentally--he had better start banking some one-liners.

"Touché," countered Jared.

"We're going to be training you and the other pilots to bring out the Evas' full potential," supplied Andy.

Training? "I think I remember Shinji talkin' about Evas, those are the giant robots he pilots?" And the robots _he_ was now going to pilot.

"In layman's terms, yes. Evas are the giant robots."

"You guys must be the ones who were fighting that giant spider the other day."

John sat up, a comically huge ice cube tied onto the lump on the top of his head. "Yeah, Kensuke must've really flipped out when we fired off those DBZ blasts, huh?"

Toji barely kept himself from laughing. "You shoulda seen the look on his face... oops." It was more like 'oh shit.' He asked for forgiveness in advance when he was dealing with Ikari, the damn creepy bastard.

"We know you snuck out of the shelters, though with the big pink one, one would think you two had learned your lesson."

"It was his idea!"

John's ice cube vanished as he stood, waving his hand dismissively. "Toji, Toji, Toji, we don't really care about two measly civilians who willingly put themselves in the line of fire. You got lectured on enough about that. What we care about is--"

"Explosions," Andy shamelessly interrupted.

"Ravaging the female cast," Jared added.

Toji opened his mouth, trying to respond to that, but found no words that could possibly be uttered in this situation, and closed it again.

John glared at the two other Americans. "As I was saying, what we want from you is your cooperation in the coming weeks as we bring all of the pilots up to the next level."

"My cooperation?"

The thin dude smiled. "You know, refrain from insulting the beautiful Asuka, encourage Shinji every now and then, and basically keep in good spirits."

The glasses dude added, "And since half of the training involves physical conditioning, it should be right up your alley."

Toji blinked. What did that have to do with anything? "But I live in an apartment..."

"Is he not fully dubbed or something?" Jared said to the one with glasses. Toji chalked that question up to him being utterly insane, and ignored it.

Andy did kindly provide a bit of an answer. "It's an expression, baka!"

John smiled. "Anyway, keep smiling. There's also a party at our place to welcome you to the family. We're right next to Misato's."

Lucky sons of... just then, custodians kicked down the doors, faces red, fists clenched. The Americans fled in a flash of aftershave, cowardice, and imperialism. But then, didn't they always?

* * *

Asuka had refined using her Mini-MAGI's map into a science and was waiting for the goons when they entered a junction of two service corridors with a seventeen digit name.

John was at the lead. In the darkness behind him--literally and figuratively--Andy followed, mumbling to himself. The trackers insisted Jared was not far behind, but she wasn't worried about them pulling anything; the corridors weren't big enough for one of the Americans to move past the other.

Upon sighting her, John was understandably surprised. "Asuka! What are you doing here?"

Asuka put on her best smirk. No need to tell him about the map, after all. "I figured this was the way you would come, genius that I am."

Jared shouted from behind Andy. "I hear my red-haired Goddess! Where is she?"

After getting an elbow in the ribs, Andy spoke up with a right hook. "Quit shoving!"

_Excellent_, Asuka thought to herself.

"I must see her!" Jared retorted with a jab.

John ignored the two and adjusted the angle of his head so that his glasses showed her only glare. "So what did you want?"

She opened with something that should give her a bit of leverage. "Well, for starters, Worm, I felt I should warn you that Akagi-san was seriously considering setting land mines in these tunnels."

"Thank you, my goddess!" Shouted Jared, ducking a kick.

"_You_ helping _us?_" John narrowed his eyes. "What is it you're after?"

She kept the smirk off of her face, watching for his reaction. Surely he was quicker on the uptake this friends. "I think you know exactly what I'm after."

By sheer amazing coincidence, Andy and Jared had dropped back a step and assumed their by-now-characteristic poses. Twin cries of stupidity and fanwanking rang out in the tiny tunnel.

"KAMEHAMEHA!"

"GALLET GUN FIRE!"

Now only silence rang through the dull gray hallway. John listened in obvious relief. "I think we should find a more comfortable place to talk."

"DARLING!" Jared dived into Andy fist-first.

Andy did not look amused as he countered with an uppercut. The two resumed fighting as Asuka led John through an access hatch into one of the nameless halls of NERV.

Inches outside of the door, she turned to face him, serious. "This isn't exactly easy for me. Just teach me, and if you do a good job, I won't castrate you with rusty farm implements." There, now he knew were he stood.

John made a covert glance at the lighting, still not revealing his eyes, and for some reason seemed to look at her hair before he answered. "Charming, but you seem to forget that only we hold the secret to those techniques."

This was already getting old. Didn't he get his ego stroked enough? "And those secrets shall be told, Worm."

"Asuka, Asuka, Asuka... You don't seem to realize who has the advantage here. It's impossible to get anything out of Andy except gibberish. And Jared will only trade his tutelage for a date or three. So, let's dispense with this whole 'Worm' business, shall we?"

She should have started shouting at this point, and put him firmly in his place, but she took a deep breath and held her ground. "When you have shown that you are worthy of a different name, I shall change it."

John crowded into her personal space. "Well, quite frankly, ki attacks require a certain amount of control. Mental control, physical control, and emotional control. You lack all three... and your preconceptions about yourself and your Eva _will_ be your downfall, Sohryu."

She held back her Righteous Fury punch that longed to seek out John's face. "I... don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do. And I simply don't have time to play doctor with you, Asuka. Now if you'll excuse me, I do have things to do."

"Do you want me to beg?" She finally asked.

John looked away, past her, and sighed. "Yes, but not right now." He turned away. "Oh, and before I forget, we're hosting a 'Welcome to NERV' party for Toji, since he's going to be piloting soon. You're invited of course."

She reacted before she had a single second to consider her words. "WHAT?! That Stooge is going to be piloting?!"

He was casual. "Yes, now if you'll excuse me, I really must be going."

"They'll let anybody pilot those things..."

John was a ways down the hall already, obviously ignoring the sounds of Andy and Jared fighting in the service corridor. "Oh, have you looked in a mirror recently?"

She wondered for a moment where this odd concern had come from. "Not since this morning, why? Is there something on my face?"

"No, no, nothing like that." He turned the far corner, and disappeared.

* * *

Some time later, the goons returned to their office, where Andy spent a full hour analyzing the bars welded right to the wall to seal the ventilation grate from interior access. Jared occupied himself with some paperwork. Namely, engaging in a ritual burning of the NERV Employee Handbook. John had torn into the OS of his Mini-MAGI, and had pulled up the overland map of Tokyo-3 when Jared set his papers aside, stretched, and whistled to get his attention. "Finished yet?"

John glanced at him, then back at his map. "Just about. Anything interesting show up in our inbox?"

"Just one thing: The receiving orders for our cars."

"What?"

Jared waved John over to whisper in his ear, "Just Andy's though. Ours should be here tomorrow."

Andy, already standing over the pair, whispers back, "Well, that thing won't hold me for long. Are we ready to go?"

Jared threw the papers in the trashcan near his desk. "Yosh!"

Andy rose and fetched his heavy-duty canvas jacket from the coat stand, and opened the office door. John sighed and closed up his Mini-MAGI's map before herding Jared out of the office.

Outside of the door, Jared waved off John. "Well, I'll just pick up the pilots."

"No," said John.

"By--" Jared began, then was interrupted by a board hitting him in the head.

Andy looked at John. "Was... that necessary?"

"_You_ will pick up the pilots." John pulled out a bone-shaped cookie and offered it to Andy.

Andy put on his best 'Vegeta' voice. "You think you can buy me with that?"

John waved the cookie at him suggestively. "You can handle it, Andy... that's right..."

Beads of sweat broke out on Andy's forehead. "Must... resist..." But he didn't. He snatched the cookie from John's hands and gnawed on it like a starving raptor.

"Good boy," John said brightly. "And the jacket, dude, wh--"

"Coat," Corrected Andy, as if he was tired of making the distinction.

John blinked. "Coat. Where did--"

"Equipment lockers, level thirty-four."

Andy bit off a chunk of his cookie and left through a convenient ventilation duct.

"Well, it looks like it's you and me," John said to the not-unconscious figure on the floor.

"Can I get up now?" Jared asked.

"Sure. But before we go, we need one more thing..."

"Do we have the time? I need to finish checking the [Stereo System]."

John gave Jared a wary look at the bracketed words. "Right."

* * *

Andy stood at the street-level access to the apartment building's parking garage, wondering what was taking Jared so long to get here. The man was a demon once his hands touched a steering wheel, and he was claiming to be delivering a super-car. What could possibly hold him up?

Jared Waddell had never been in a traffic jam in his entire life. He'd been through, around, under, and (terrifyingly) over many of them, sometimes with a mildly panicked Andy helplessly restrained in the passenger seat. So, no, traffic could not possibly be holding up the Four-Wheeled Demon of Washington State. The Japanese police couldn't even slow him down, especially not with his NERV ID. Traffic lights and the public safety were quaint ideas that Jared treated with the same respect he reserved for creationism and republicans--none.

For the last twenty seconds or so, Andy had been hearing a strange wailing, like a tiny world dying. Dying, and approaching rapidly.

Suddenly, the noise was a crescendo of squealing tires, wailing transmission, and howling engine. All three went silent at the same moment. Coincidentally, that was the same moment that a fire-engine red Ferrari F40 appeared before him in a cloud of acrid smoke. Jared's smiling face was in the window. He got out of the car the usual way (the door), and greeted Andy. "Hi, dude."

"What's that?" Andy asked ambiguously.

"Your car."

Andy peered at the interior. "Where's the stereo?"

"It's got a sound system," Jared insisted. He got back in the driver's seat, leaving the door open, and fired up the way-too-loud engine to rev it for a few moments.

"You didn't answer my question," Andy stated flatly.

In response, Jared revved the engine again, then shut the beast off. He sighed theatrically. "I'll install one."

Andy swapped places with Jared, and the whining and bitching began. "Where's the seat adjuster?"

"That lever under there."

"It's not electric?"

"No."

"How many airbags does it have?"

"None."

"What about the floor mats?"

"It doesn't come with floor mats."

"I see a stick. Does it have a clutch?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"That pedal."

"I'm pushing on that pedal. It's not moving."

"It's a pretty stiff clutch. Uh, think of it as special leg training."

Andy grumbled and shut the door, then stared at it. "Where's the door handles?"

"Doesn't have any."

"Doesn't... Then how did you just... and how do I roll the windows down?"

"The windows don't roll down."

Andy stewed for a minute, and finally what he had been hurting to say burst forth. "Waddell, you imbecile! You spent NERV's money on a car that doesn't work!"

"It's not broken. It's... spartan. Light on its feet. Ridiculously fast. Epically cool."

"It's not cool! It's got no door handles! And what's this... is this glue? Is this car glued together?!"

"I'm hungry," said Jared, walking away.

"Hey! HEY! Get back here, damn it! ...How do I get out of this thing?!!"

* * *

Much later that night, after certain people had gotten the hang of using their car and subsequently gotten themselves roped into running around the neighboring pilots, John found himself the unfortunate witness to Jared's 'sonic testing.'

"TURN IT DOWN!!!" And discovered why the couch had been bolted to the floor.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!!"

And then, for reasons unknown to both God and man, Jared turned the volume _up_.

The funny part would be where a post-doc monitoring some seismic sensor feeds a hundred kilometers away started seeing an earthquake caused by an apartment building.

* * *

Miles away, where Andy was picking up the party supplies from a convenience store with three other Eva pilots in tow, the skyline of Tokyo-3 was visibly wobbling.

Asuka and Shinji were putting their bags of goodies into the trunk of Andy's red F40 when they stopped to watch the buildings undulate. "Earthquake?" Asuka asked after a minute.

"I don't think so," Shinji replied.

"it is not an angel attack," Rei added.

Andy put on his shades and stuffed their bags into the trunk. "I'll see you back at our place!"

Andy quickly got into the car and laid a patch.

"That... was our ride." Asuka said to the cloud of tire smoke. She raised a fist at the departing car. "Asshole!"

* * *

Andy made his way up the stairs to the seventh floor, not trusting elevator cars that swayed like cable-hung gondolas in tornado alley. After breaching the sixth floor, he swapped his driving sunglasses for his wrap-around shooting sunglasses, looking very much like a character from a Wachowski film. At the access door to the seventh floor, he withdrew an immense single-shot, fifty caliber rifle from his massive Coat and dropped into a crouch.

He slid through the door and took cover behind a conveniently placed, sturdy metal barrel. While he was there, he noted that no sane man would wonder why a steel barrel would be sitting on an outdoor hallway on the seventh floor of an apartment complex. First person shooter's said so!

Then the door to apartment 724 was blown off by a powerful bass hit. John was shortly sent on a sonically-powered flight through said doorway onto the floor near Andy's cover.

Andy looked to the unconscious goon and wrestled with himself. "Apartment... John unconscious... large weapon... anime within apartment... Nnngh..." Not that anyone could hear him, given the local noise levels. He finally made his decision, and sighted into the apartment with his immense weapon, firing a single shot.

Silence reigned.

John woke while Andy was cycling the rifle's action, and immediately saw the goon. "...I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but thank you."

Andy removed his military grade earplugs upon seeing John moving. "Did you say something?"

"...No. Help me up?"

Andy ignored the request and put the rifle back to where it came from. John climbed quickly to his feet and dusted himself off.

"Hey!" Jared shouted from within the apartment. "Who put this bullet hole here? Damn it, this is why we can't have nice things!"

John pulled out some lumber. "Excuse me..." Plucking Andy's sunglasses off of the taller goon's face. "I'll be back."

Andy was about to protest, but couldn't decide what to get angry over; the fact that John had just stolen his sunglasses, or the fact that John had just stolen his line. Damn him!

Before he grew exhausted from the immense effort required to pick one, Andy was distracted by the elevator at the end of the open-air hallway disgorging three Eva pilots.

"How did you get here so quickly?" His eyes narrowed in suspicion at the three teens. "I had a high-powered foreign sports car. You all were on foot!"

The red-haired one snorted, her hair briefly switching to yellow before switching back as she replied, "You navigate like a drunken spider on a storm-tossed ship."

Shinji nodded enthusiastically, until he spied Asuka's hair, at which point he began silently pointing at it with even more enthusiasm, desperate to get Andy's attention. Andy ignored this as stoically as the pale clone next to the Ace was ignoring the entire situation.

"I had a map!" Andy said to Asuka's hair.

"That you didn't use," The German deadpanned.

Shinji continued to gesture frantically at Asuka's hair. Andy shrugged, mystified at the insanity surrounding him, and straightened his Coat. Shinji stopped pointing at Asuka's hair, and started staring at Andy.

"What's with the military firepower?" Asuka asked.

"What military firepower?" Andy replied, annoyed. He followed Asuka's pointing finger to see the outline of his Grizzly target rifle visible through the Coat. "It's not military, its civilian."

"This is Japan!" Howled Asuka. "You can't just walk around in broad daylight with a gun the size of a small car!"

Andy looked to the dark windows. "It's not daylight anymore, and for the record, I drive a small car, and it seats me _and_ this gun just fine."

"Y-You can't carry a gun like that in public!" Shinji's incredulometer had been pegged out for too long.

"I'm NERV Intelligence." Andy showed his badge for emphasis. "It's part of my job."

Asuka snorted again, her blue hair gaining a green tint for a second. "NERV. Intelligence. In the same sentence. Amazing."

Andy quickly adjusted an imaginary tie. "Why, thank you."

Asuka's hair shifted to corn yellow. Andy raised an eyebrow at this. Shinji caught the raising and shrugged in reply, then suggested they all head into the apartment. "Hey, why don't we all go inside now?"

"An excellent suggestion, invertebrate," said Andy.

"Why do you have to call me that?" Shinji pouted.

"Why do you have to be so spineless?" Andy countered.

"I..."

"Leave him alone!" Thundered a red-haired Asuka.

"...Riiight," said Andy, turning away and leading the trio into the Dungeon of--er, the apartment of the (cue evil music) Three Goons!

"_Ooooooo!_" Andy shouted once he cleared the door, causing the three Japanese pilots to jump. "The space is a mess, claustrophobic. A massive entertainment center dominates the north wall. The television is off. A large hole in the stereo system appears to have silenced speakers the size of Volkswagen Beetles. Tennis shoe marks mar the floors, walls, and curiously, ceilings. The kitchen to the east is pristine, but the darkened hallway is a treacherous river of laundry. A couch is here, overturned. A body is on the floor here, barely recognizable as human. Is it dead? Alive? Suddenly, a being of pure evil slithers out of the hallway, reeking of--"

John, now out of the hallway, glared flatly at his comrade. "Andy, stop narrating like we're in an interactive fiction game. You're scaring the children."

Andy turned around to look at two wide-eyed pilots, and one unflappable clone. "Boo!"

Asuka decked him.

Andy bounced off the floor and back to a standing position, rubbing his jaw. "Okay, put that stuff away."

"What stuff, the stuff in the trunk of your car?" Shinji asked.

"Of course!"

"Your locked car that's in the parking garage on the ground floor?" Shinji added.

"Yes!" Andy was tiring of this game.

"With the party supplies in it?"

"YES!" Andy thundered.

John finally tapped Andy on the head with his two-by-four. "Andy doesn't understand logic," he apologized to the other pilots.

Andy swatted at the lumber while rubbing his head. "That hurt, damn it!"

John pointed at Asuka. "Keys."

"She's the key to what?" Andy said, irritated.

_Tap._

The Japanese kids watched the exchange with amusement.

"Quit doing that!"

"Give her your keys."

"Why?!"

"So she and Rei can bring up the party supplies."

Suddenly, Andy was all sunshine and rainbows. Plants in the apartment immediately perked up. That is, they would if any plants were in the apartment. "Sure, no problem." He smiled, an unsettling sight, then chucked the keys at the trio, hitting roughly eighty miles per hour, and Shinji's face.

POW!

Thud.

"OW! MOTHER OF--" The remainder of Shinji's complaining was muffled by his hands over his own face, searching for gaping wounds.

John ignored the kid and smiled at Asuka, his grin menacing and unflinching.

Asuka's hair seemed to respond an instant before her tongue, shifting to deep and angry red. "Well played, Worm." She grabbed the keys off a groaning Shinji and left the apartment with Rei in tow.

Jared sat up. "I live."

"Unfortunately," John commented.

Andy tapped John on the shoulder. "My sunglasses?"

"Hey, I'm being dramatic here!" Jared shouted from the floor, and was ignored. Grumbling, he got to his feet while John handed Andy the shooting glasses.

Shinji also got to his feet, wary of another attack. Not wary enough to dodge Jared glomping onto his leg, though.

"Ace! You've gotta help me!" He jumped to his feet and moved quickly behind Shinji, using the pilot as a human shield while pointing wildly at John and Andy while wailing like a school girl. "They're being meeeaaan!"

"Uh... I, um. What?" Shinji asked.

"You're the big bad Eva pilot! Kill them and feast of their remains!" Jared howled. His hand clawed the air, desperate for a whip.

"Hm," Andy noted. "He went straight from dramatic to drama queen."

"He does that a lot, doesn't he?" John asked Andy.

"I'd say so, yeah," replied the Maniac.

Shinji nodded enthusiastically as Andy answered.

"You guys are just no fun," Jared pouted, then left Shinji to turn up the volume on the stereo. After spinning the knob uselessly a few times, he punched a few buttons, then looked over the rig. "Aha! A bullet hole!" He glanced around the room suspiciously. "Gentlemen, we may have snipers in the area."

Andy put his shooting glasses back on. "What are they packing?"

"Fifty caliber by the looks of this hole," Jared said, pointing at his ruined stereo. He closed the blinds to peek out between the slats. "This could have come from anywhere."

Andy grabbed a chopstick from the kitchen and fed it into the hole in the stereo. "From the looks of this trajectory, the bullet came through the--THE FRONT DOOR!"

Jared looked to apartment's entrance, where the front door had been ripped from its tracks. "We've got a breach!"

John righted the couch and sat down with a pained sigh. "Ace, close your mouth before something builds a house in it and sit down."

Brain obeying John's command on autopilot, Shinji also sat down on the couch. He looked at John, attempted to say something, then looked back to Andy and Jared. The pair were busy constructing a barricade where the front door used to be, utilizing a mountain of empty pop cans as raw material, and duct tape as a kind of mortar. He finally tore his eyes away from their ADHD-inspired engineering discussion and attempted to form a question in John's general direction.

After Shinji failed to find words to expression his confusion, John answered. "They have the collective attention span of a hyperactive terrier."

Shinji swallowed this and found it stayed down. He glanced at the already half-built makeshift door. "Can terriers be house trained?" He asked. He didn't know why, but quite suddenly, he wanted to know.

"Yes, but getting Andy and Jared to behave is probably going be somewhere up there on the List of Really Hard Things To Do right next to 'create sustained nuclear fusion in an aluminum can'."

"Hey, I did that last week!" Jared said without looking up from his work.

"Your atrocious food experiments don't count," John countered.

"Who put all these fucking cans here?!" Asuka shouted from the other side of Jared and Andy's construct.

The two goons peeked over the top, which was about up to their shoulders, and gave Asuka clueless looks. "What are you babbling about, wench?" Andy asked rudely.

Jared side-kicked Andy into a nearby wall. "What he meant to say was, 'hold on a moment, Asuka-sama, and we shall have you inside'."

Andy engaged his Sarcasm Mode from inside the wall. "Of course."

"I'm waiting!" Asuka chimed in.

"Can't you wait quietly?" John asked from the couch.

"Fuck off!" Came the reply.

Jared finally pulled the door open. "Tada!"

Asuka stalked inside with a glare, her flaming red hair trailing her like a swath of living fire.

"Rei!" John said happily, indicating the spot next to him on the couch. "Take a seat."

"okay." Rei approached the couch, glanced at the offered spot, and sat primly on the edge of the cushion.

"Whoa, what happened to your door?" Toji said from the entrance.

Hikari stood uneasily next to him, adding, "And what's with the cans?"

"Oh, a little project of ours, right Andy?"

Andy was halfway through brushing off the bits of drywall and broken wood that littered his hair like trinkets in a bird's nest. "Yes, an important security measure."

She peered at the cans like a single, childless twenty-something man, blinking uncomprehendingly at the artwork of a two-year-old. "I see..."

Jared smiled.

Andy smiled.

Andy tackled Jared.

The two rolled into the kitchen, missing Asuka by inches. "Watch it, fuckers!" She brought out some drinks, handing one each to Rei and Shinji with a big smile and blonde hair, then snarling and redheaded to John when he gave her puppy dog eyes. Or leered at her. Hard to tell with how the apartment's lighting kept the glare pouring off his glasses.

She picked a chair far away from the couch.

Toji and Hikari sat down on the smaller couch that one might unimaginatively call a 'love seat.'

"Ha! I have the high ground now, Waddell!" Came from the kitchen.

"You're on the stove," replied Jared.

"It is a tasty high ground, is it not?" Asked Andy.

Fwoosh! Said the stove.

"John! Andy's on fire again!"

"Dang it!" Misato said over the remains of the improvised front door. "I'm already missing the party?"

* * *

End Chapter 8

**A note from the author(s):**

I _could_ stop here and whine about multiple computer and car failures, certain persons loosing their jobs, time-intensive engagements made before I even started releasing _Goonvangelion_, being sick for a month, a co-author actually catching the Swine Flu, and a close family friend having a serious medical crisis... but that would be making excuses.

No excuses. I was being lazy. Besides, this isn't exactly _The Lord of the Rings_, right?

Four more chapters to the end of the book sound doable. Even five, if it comes to that. Then we'll have another break. A brief, deliberate one.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** By decree of the Holy Water Buffalo, there will be no more disclaimers. Seriously.

* * *

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 9: Look Ma! / The First Step

* * *

Jared slammed his empty cup of coffee onto the counter top with a satisfied sigh. "So, what's on the agenda today, gentlemen?"

The three were at their kitchen counter as usual, drinking coffee at varying speeds and levels of wakefulness, with Misato sipping her own beer across the counter. Behind the Goons, sleeping teens littered the floor; some NERV personnel who had come over late in the evening had already picked themselves up and left for work. The Goons were currently four hours, thirty-one minutes late and counting.

John stared into his second cup. "Well, I've been thinking about Rei."

Misato poured Jared a second cup. "Oh, you have?"

"Well, about moving her into this building," John clarified. "Why, what if there was an emergency?"

Misato set her beer on the counter. "In the event of an Attack, getting the pilots to their Evangelions has the highest priority and--"

"What makes you think Angels are NERV's only enemies?" Andy growled, sipping at his first cup of coffee with a 'I should still be asleep, damn it' look on his face.

John and Jared's faces went carefully blank.

Misato picked up her can of brew and swirled it around absently while she looked at the Goons, silent. "Well Mucha, that's... interesting."

"Isn't it, though?" Jared added.

"We are aware of the security around the pilots," said John.

"That too is interesting," said Misato.

Behind the Goons, Toji sat up. Still asleep, he asked, "What?"

"Nothing!" Jared shouted. Toji grumbled something in reply and laid back down.

"So," Misato asked carefully. "What episode are we in now?"

"Hard to say. We aren't in the original plot anymore," Andy supplied.

"Yeah, this is almost like... fan fiction," Jared added. "Hmm..." Then he finished off his cup. "Mmm... yeah. Maybe... Hrm..."

Misato slowly finished her beer as well, watching the trio. She idly selected a large plate from the cupboard. "Well, I remember the pilots mentioning something about training. Since you three are skipping work, I assume training is on the agenda."

"I don't see why not," John said idly.

Andy and Jared began long sips of their coffee.

Misato idly grabbed a serving platter off of the counter, fingering the pattern imprinted in the cheap plastic. "Going to teach them to throw ki blasts like Rei did during the last Angel battle?" She countered the dual spit-takes that followed her question by holding the serving platter up as a shield. When the surprise-powered spewing stopped, she dropped the platter directly into the sink.

"What ki blast?!" Jared demanded of John.

"Uh, you guys weren't aware of Rei using a ki blast right next to me when we fought the Ninth?"

"Well, excuse me, I was kind of under an Angel at the time!" Jared snapped.

"I was on the other side of that Angel, thank you very much!" Andy added.

"Did you talk to Rei about this?" John asked, ignoring his fellow chattering primates.

"Of course I did, she's the one that told me," Misato replied. "So, what are you guys going to do?"

"Well, we do have work, so I'm sure we'll show up at NERV at some point," John mused.

"Presumably whenever you feel like it," Misato put in, ignored summarily by all three.

"We must prepare NERV to defeat the Angels," said Andy.

"And grope Asuka, that blue-haired chick in the weapon testing wing, and those three waitresses in the Black Mountain Bar with the fine, fine a--" Jared was cut as Misato talked over him in a loud voice.

"Fine, don't tell me." She breezed passed the guys to put her shoes on.

"We will be training the pilots, I think," John said. "That's what will lead us to each of our goals."

Jared and Andy nodded sagely.

"Holy shit, that actually made sense." Fearing for her own sanity, Misato left.

* * *

After dodging their boss on the way in--complete with a chanting of 'sneak, sneak, sneak' during the process--the Goons spent some time getting settled in their office. At least, they were going to until Andy stood on his desk and screamed 'boring' at the top of his lungs. Jared swept him off the desk while John batted a thousand on Andy's skull using his name plaque.

They quickly tied up their 'friend' like a caught shark and took several 'trophy' pictures with him.

Then the Section Chief walked in. "It's finally happened. Someone's died in this office and now the survivors can be executed, dissected, and fired. In that order. Oh, happy day!"

"It's nice to see racism is alive and well in Japan," Jared said dryly.

John jumped across his desk and dropped the Chief with another swing from his name plaque.

"Uh, why did you do that?" Jared asked, realizing John stood between him and the room's only exit.

John said the dumbest thing that came to mind. "I think that was a silly attempt to replay, in office violence form, America's defeat of Japan."

"Will successive interactions between both nations be played out through our interactions with Section Chief Yamanaki?" Jared questioned eagerly.

"How..." John quickly ran through a mental list of suitable descriptors. Dumb? Stupid? Repetitive? Trite? Repetitive? Hackneyed? Banal? Unoriginal? Repetitive? Jared? Wait, maybe he had something there. On the other hand, he really liked 'banal.' He made his decision before the first word had grown stale on his tongue. "Banal."

"Indeed," Jared said with a smile.

"THAT HURT!" Yamanaki cried, still on the floor.

"He can yell pretty loudly for a guy with a head injury," Jared commented.

"YOU TWO WILL PAY FOR THIS!" Andy shouted, then flipped to his feet and kicked at Jared, who jumped out of the way to land on his own desk. He did it just like a cat--showing off enough style to deliberately piss off his opponent, but acting like he didn't give a damn about how much he pissed off said opponent.

John put his name plaque back on his desk and helped Yamanaki to his feet. "Boss, could we have a word outside while they redecorate the office?"

Yamanaki's reply was a disgusted huff, a narrowing of his eyes, then a curt nod towards the door while the Battle Cry of the Idiots rang out through the office.

"KAMEHAMEHA!"

"FATAL FLASH!"

John closed the door. Then stood in front of it.

Yamanaki nodded over John's shoulder at the door. "Are they--"

"Yes."

"Can they--"

"No."

"Are you s--"

"Yes."

"But could they--"

"Lord, I hope not."

"So do I. Well, you three were five hours late for work today. Originally, I came to hear your excuse this time--"

"The pilots," John smoothly interrupted. "We had a party last night. It ran late. A few of them fell asleep at our place. I figured NERV wouldn't want us leaving them there alone, so we woke 'em this morning and sent them home at a sane hour."

"Then stuffed Suzuhara into a giant piñata, hung it next to the Horaki girl and left a baseball bat in her hands." The Chief added.

"Hikari probably flipped when she gave it a whack and it started screaming," John said with a wistful smile. "But he's in one piece and I'm sure she's calmed down by now."

"Is that how you quantify the safety of the public? That they're in one piece?"

Following his standard office protocol, John replied by tweaking the bosses nerves with a pair of pliers, a blow torch, and forty-five times the necessary enthusiasm. "I recall something about not floating in the infinite vacuum of space surrounded by fist-sized rocks that used to a planet, now rendered a cloud of debris aimlessly orbiting a dying star. Throw that in there too."

Yamanaki's lips drew into a tight line. John suspected that if he tossed a chunk of carbon in between them, a diamond would fall out when the Section Chief started yelling. John waited patiently until Yamanaki gathered his nerves and separated his lips. "Well, be that as it may, I am warning you not to put your fellow pilots in undue danger. _They_ are necessary for the defense of Tokyo-3. _You_ are expendable."

"Warning duly noted, Chief," John said with a half-ass salute. He then spied Asuka coming down the hallway towards him. He ignored the Chief's scoff and waved the fuming man off. Asuka stopped a few paces away, almost as if expecting an applause and for him to maybe drop to one knee and kiss an offered hand. He smiled at her like an annoyed parent indulging a belligerent child. "Hi Asuka, what do you want this time? Ice-cream? My lunch isn't for another thirty minutes." He lied. Technically, his lunch was whenever he felt like it.

"Har-har. The tall stooge told me you were going to start training all of us pilots."

"Training is something you all need. Now, it would be easy to simply lock the four of you in a room with Jared for three hours a day, but that will just get me in trouble with the Human Rights people. You all probably won't learn much beyond running and screaming anyhow. So, how do _you_ suggest I handle the pilot training?"

"You can do ki-blasts. Teach me how. Surely the stooges can pick it up from Andy with ease, and you'd love to teach Wondergirl in person, right?"

"I don't want to teach you. I don't _want_ to teach _anybody_. I don't think any of us three are really capable of teaching you guys ki blasts. At least, not yet. Look, I could suggest to Jared that you should know how, and with a little prodding, he might figure it out. Somehow."

"You're actually suggesting I get within groping distance of that pervert?!" Asuka shrieked, scandalized.

John sighed, then frowned. "No. And your attitude and habit of ignoring what I fucking say is getting very annoying. I am suggesting that Jared, being the martial artist among us, figure out a way to teach you three, and hand that information off to NERV personnel."

"That..." Asuka looked suddenly unsure of herself, like a politician without a script. "All right, _John_. Let's do that." She pulled up her Mini-MAGI interface and walked away with the map active.

John almost fell over when heard Asuka force out his name instead of a reflexive insult. He... didn't expect that.

Asuka _was_ just a character in an anime, right?

Well, maybe... not anymore.

Hmm.

He walked back into the office. The _empty_ office. He called up Jared on a direct line using the Mini-MAGI.

A video feed came on, revealing Jared laying on his stomach in a very dirty air duct, wearing a stained white tank top and using an old Zippo lighter for illumination. "Yeah?" He asked with a distinct New Jersey accent.

John decided to skip berating Jared until he knew where the bastard was. "Asuka wants to learn to do ki blasts."

Grimly, Jared said, "Welcome to the party, pal."

"What, she's already asked you?"

Jared shrugged, not dropping the terrible accent. "Nah, I just figured it was coming. Why the call?"

"Hypothetically speaking, let's say you were to teach Asuka how to do ki blasts in her Evangelion. How would you go about training her?"

Jared looked thoughtful for a moment. "I would start with conditioning."

"What kind of conditioning?" John wondered.

"Air conditioning, it's damn hot in here."

"Focus, McClain!" John shouted at his Mini-MAGI.

"Well, I'd have to figure out how we did ki blasts," Jared said. He shook his head, the lighter catching his hair on fire. "Man it's hot in here."

John almost said something, but instead thanked Jared for his time and closed the line. A moment later, he tapped his watch again, calling up the tracking map, and watching the blue dot--Jared--and the yellow dot--Andy--make their way to a green square labeled 'Training Area Four.'

A red dot--Asuka--was just a few hallways away...

"I wonder if NERV has enough insurance to cover this?" He mused out loud.

* * *

She found them in Training Area Four. Although a piece of paper had been taped over the sign next to the door, and upon it some English was written:

Most Badass Training Room EVER!

PLEASE: Do not enter unless you are prepared to learn the sacred art of Ass Kicking.

Asuka sighed heavily and rubbed her temples to stave off the coming headache. "Okay, focused... need to stay focused..." She looked at the door, faintly hearing the distant sounds of highly enthusiastic combat.

She knocked, then quickly stepped to the one side. A second later, Andy's airborne body blew the door clean out of its frame, both impacting the far wall with a cacophonous bang.

She peeked into the room. It looked rather like a small American gym, with a small set of free weights in one corner, a few heavy bags tucked into the other corner, open mats in the far corner, and a full boxing ring in the remaining corner. Jared was standing in the middle of the ring, wearing a simple white gi, one bare foot raised in the follow-through to a karate sidekick. Wisps of smoke appeared to rise from his heel and blue fire seemed to burn where his iris should have been.

He slowly lowered his foot to the mat's surface.

Andy groaned. Asuka gave him a glance, noticing that he too was wearing a white gi, although his belt was white, while Jared's was black with several colored patches.

Asuka stepped into the door frame and leaned casually against it, crossing her arms in front of her. "Is that supposed to impress me?"

Jared smiled serenely from the ring. "Not especially for you, my dear, I'm just naturally impressive."

"Why was your foot smoking?"

"Because I am made of pure awesome," he said as if channeling the voice of the lord of the universe, certain of the Undeniable Truth flowing forth from between his lips.

Asuka lifted one corner of her mouth in irritation. "..."

Jared sighed. "It's chalk dust. The mat is a bit dirty."

"It's cleaned every shift," Asuka said.

"Andy and I have been at it for a while," Jared replied.

"According to your Mini-MAGI, twenty seconds," Asuka stated.

The pervert didn't miss a beat. "We were using a training montage to speed up the honing of our skills."

"Jumping around while screaming like Bruce Lee and punching the air does not make a 'training montage'," Asuka replied, deadpan.

"All those curves and a sense of humor too? Somebody call a coroner, because I've died and gone to heaven!" Then he turned around and did three back flips, the last taking him out of the ring and landing him on the floor in front of Asuka, but facing away from her. He slowly bent into a bridge. "Polka dots today? Feh. Predictable."

Asuka snarled and kicked him in the head.

After rebounding off the sparring ring, Jared removed his gloves and rubbed the comically over-sized bandage on his head. Taking in the flaming red hair, "Pink and blue."

Asuka lunged at him, her fist missing his face by inches and slamming into the padded base of the ring. Chalk dust billowed into the around around her fist.

"Interesting," Jared said, his head tilted to one side to avoid the blow.

Asuka drew back. Her hair flared a darker shade of red, then slowly returned to its normal color.

"Hmm..." Andy said, holding a color sample to her crimson locks.

"Get away from me, Mucha."

Jared jumped into the ring. "Come, my beauty! Into the ring!"

"Don't call me that!"

Jared started jumping from foot to foot, dancing around the ring like Bruce Lee. "I wanna see what you're made of. Besides pure sex, of course."

Wordlessly, Andy held a bullet-proof vest out for Asuka to take.

She grabbed the vest and shucked out of her shoes. While struggling into the vest, "Why can't the world go back to being normal?"

Andy offered her a last will and testament form, and a pen stolen from NERV's Public Relations department.

"Piss off, Mucha."

Andy wisely put away the cigarette and blindfold while Asuka climbed into the ring and put up her fists.

"Beware, Goddess! I have the speed of a mongoose and the reflexes of a ca--"

Asuka dashed in and popped him one in the side of the head.

"Ooow! You hit me in the ear! Why the fuck did you do that?"

Asuka smirked, her hair turning a light purple. "Both species are asleep at this hour."

"All right, that one was free, but prepare yourself for--"

Pow!

"Fuck! In the ear again! What the hell was that for?!"

Asuka shrugged, failing to look innocent. "I thought we were sparring."

"But I'm not done with the pre-fight tra--"

Asuka threw her fist at his yammering face again, but this time it passed cleanly through empty air. Before she could even wonder why, a small car slammed into her stomach. The ropes stopped her from sailing clear of the ring, instead catapulting her face-first onto the mat.

Picking her head up, she glared at the Goon standing before her in a relaxed ready stance. He simply said, "I win."

"No," Asuka paused to cough. "I hit you twice." She put her hands under her and maneuvered into a sitting position. "You hit me once. I win."

"I'm still alive because you didn't aim to kill. You're still alive because I pulled that blow. In a real fight, you'd be dead."

Her chest hurt, her whole rib cage felt like some huge friggin' guy had been stomping on her for hours. Nothing seemed broken, but then her eyes landed on the bullet proof vest protecting her torso. "That's not--"

"Try doing a set of bloopers at breakfast, lunch, and dinner to start with. Let's say... eight each. We'll move on to combat conditioning in two weeks when we have full assessed all of the pilots' physical abilities."

Asuka snorted in contempt. "This is supposed to help me learn to do ki blasts in an Eva?"

Jared assumed a familiar look: Clueless moron. "What? Who said anything about ki blasts?"

"Ugh! You mean I've been--" Asuka stripped the vest off with a snarl, tossing it at Andy's head like she was trying to knock it off his shoulders. "I came down here because the Worm won't show me how he does ki blasts in his Eva! He said to talk to you!"

"Oh," Jared shrugged. "Well, let me think. Did you try doing one?"

"Yes!" Asuka said, almost screeching.

"That's... news to me." Jared mused, rubbing his chin in 'thought.' He glanced at Andy, then looked at her. "Did it work?"

"NO!" she shouted.

"Did you pose?" Jared asked.

Asuka clenched her fist to keep them from flying at his face. "Yes!"

"Shout the attack name?" The Goon said as if reading off a checklist.

Asuka sighed. "I don't see what that has to do with anything, but yes!"

The Goon pulled out a heavily used notepad, and began writing complex equations on it rapidly. Asuka waited for something comprehensible to come out of his pie hole, but after fifteen minutes of being ignored, threw her arms into the air in frustration. "Well?!"

Jared looked up from his writings and adjusted a pair of glasses that weren't there. "This... requires some... experimentation. Come, Mucha!"

Andy appeared beside Jared--not walked, not sauntered, not slid or strode, not slithered or dashed, and not meandered, but _appeared--_and mimicked him in tone and volume as the two shouted, "FOR _SCIENCE!_"

Asuka's hair was a strange blend of green, red, yellow, and purple, the colors swirling about each other like a mud puddle of sharks. "MY BRAIN!" She screamed, clocking Jared, who went down like a deflating condom. "MY BRAIN!" Andy tried to duck the second blow but couldn't move fast enough while tangled in his lab coat and went down next to Jared.

Asuka strode from the room, running her fingers through her hair in exasperation. "They're dissolving my brain!"

* * *

Jared and Andy walked into the labs like a pair of lost sailors. The whole wing was tight, divided into countless partitioned rooms short on space and long on exotic equipment. Technicians moved through the space like ants in a colony, barely noticing the two Americans standing a head above everybody else. The pair cut through rooms quickly, efficiently, zeroing in on a head of bleached hair they could recognize instantly at a hundred paces.

And soon, the Americans stood before Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, who glared at them and said, "Why are you two wearing lab coats?"

"We were in a hurry," Andy said.

"Still are. Is this a good time?" Jared asked.

"No," the doctor replied.

"When would it be a good time?"

"Never."

"That's going to make our scheduling a bitch," Jared complained. "Okay, I'll just ask you now. Have you ever known any person to actually throw a ki blast? I mean like, actual _energy_ that was directly seen or observed?"

Ritsuko frowned at them as if they'd just asked a particularly stupid question. "No. And for the record, even coming from you two that is a particularly stupid question. _Now_ will you get out of my hair?"

"Sure. Thanks!" Chirped Andy.

And just like that, the two left. They could still be heard talking as they walked out of the lab area without a backwards glance.

"What are we going to do now?" Asked Andy.

Jared replied with the authority of a man who had not the foggiest idea of what to do next, and frankly didn't care. "Talk to the next person we run into who might have martial skills. And since we're close to it, I say we swing by the maintenance department first."

* * *

Later that afternoon, John was finishing up yet another pile of paperwork in the office when there came a knock, knock, knocking at the door. For a second he had the brilliant idea of quoting Edgar Allen Poe, but decided that was just the coffee talking and got up to deal with the door. Opening it, he found Andy and Jared on the other side, still dressed in lab coats. Jared also sported a pair of black rubber gloves and old style goggles hanging around his neck. Andy sported a belt of machine gun ammunition drawn across his chest.

John's look drew the answer from them.

"We have been doing... _SCIENCE!_" They shouted in unison.

John closed the door, praying the headache wouldn't stick around, make itself at home, and bother him for the rest of the afternoon. He wasn't really ready for it. He sighed, opened the door. Two idiots in lab coats were still standing there, grinning like... well, like idiots. John braced himself as he asked, "Do I want to hear this one?"

Jared rubbed his gloved hands together with palpable glee, then walked past John into the room and up to a blackboard John was certain hadn't been there before he opened the door. At the blackboard, Jared chucked the gloves and produced a piece of chalk. He scribbled furiously while talking a mile a minute. "Well, explaining ki, as it pertains to Evas and A.T.-Field attacks, is a PhD level discussion about molecular dynamics and particle spin and about a dozen other concepts, but as I'm an engineer and couldn't give two shits about those fancy-pants PhD assholes and their wonderful 'theories,' we'll skip that bullshit. We all know that chemical and nerve processes in the body involving electricity. Our nerve cells actually conduct electricity rather well. And, we also know that where current flows, a magnetic field is produced. We use this principle to build electromagnets."

Andy cut in, "And use electromagnets to execute creative pranks on the maintenance crew."

"Exactly!" Jared pointed to Andy like a teacher highlighting an especially smart student. "The result is that a human nervous system can be scanned by noninvasive equipment that merely detects very tiny magnetic fields. And that has nothing to do with the Eva's control system." He put the chalk down, triumphant.

John looked at the drawing now on the chalk board: A crude stick figure with exaggerated mammary glands, looking rather like a broken hat rack with a couple of balloons taped to it. He produced an eraser from nowhere in particular and quickly erased the image. Out loud, he mused. "That's the hair clips though, isn't it? They're... magnetic brain scanners?"

"Yep. They function as a set of keys for the Evas." Jared began drawing with another piece of chalk. John wondered if he should have tied Jared to one of the office's uncomfortable chairs while Jared continued. "Basically, each human brain has a unique magnetic signature that rarely, if ever, changes. It's like our... brain fingerprint. The hair clips are very simple scanners that tell the Eva's computer systems to let the pilot wearing them to command the Eva. This also is to prevent neural control confusion... not that said system actually works properly. The Eva itself doesn't use the clips for control."

"The original series said as much through Ritsuko," John pointed out.

"That's true," Andy said. "The neural clips were never the whole control interface, otherwise they'd allow a pilot to control the Eva remotely. That feat in fact, requires a one hundred percent synch ratio, but that's another episode." He gestured to Jared. "Go on."

John stared at Andy. So, he _had_ been replaced by a pod-person.

Jared drew a breath. "The Eva itself apparently reads our 'spirit' if you will. It reads our whole nervous system, which is conducting electricity and emitting a magnet field. The nervous system, as you know, extends throughout the whole human body, and if ki exists, that is its likely origin. In short, the Eva does what our _ki_ commands. Follow?" He finished drawing another figure, and set the chalk down.

John looked at the crudely drawn nude woman plastered across the blackboard like an anatomy model drawn by a three-year-old. He went to work with the eraser while he digested this information. "Let me guess, when we move the Eva, it's responding to a small amount of ki that _would_ move our legs around if we put enough effort into it, and when we fire ki... well, A.T. blasts in an Eva, that's copying an actual _ki blast_ we're performing inside the entry plug?"

Jared whipped out another piece of chalk, prompting John to kick it out of his hand. Jared hardly seemed to notice and shifted to a pacing lecture mode. "Exactly. Even though the most sensitive equipment man has ever made could barely detect that energy, that ki that the Eva's scan and mimic, it's there nonetheless. The Eva can detect it just fine, and does what it can to mirror the action. Gentlemen, we're already doing ki blasts. We just need to kick it up a notch. We need some... some _bam!_"

"And boom!" Andy reminded him.

John sighed. "That's awesome. But it still doesn't explain how a person learns to control their ki."

Jared shrugged, leaning against his desk. "That's already licked, actually. Classical martial arts training and meditation practice solves the problem nicely. Rei seems to be a natural... I don't know why. Maybe because she's a clone? We know she's not using freaky Angel powers because an Orange Pattern wasn't detected when she shot one at the ninth."

Andy parted Jared's speech like Moses getting on that Red Sea thing. "Maybe she did use freaky Angel powers and they simply weren't detected? Then we'd have the same Angel powers, and we would also be Angel-slash-human hybrids with implanted memories. That would make us agents of a vicious, word-destroying conspiracy we currently believe we are working against."

"Now that's just silly," John said.

Jared looked at Andy for a minute, as if he too were making sure Andy was not some pod person. At length, he looked satisfied, then turned to John. "Anyway, for the sake of making the pilots more effective in combat at the same time, we should combine this with combat, conditioning, and survival drills. No esoteric 'one hit kill' bullshit, but all the martial arts conditioning stuff that leads up to it."

"How did you figure this out?" John asked.

"Ritsuko. And Bob. And Saito. And some files. And the public library." Andy replied, ticking off their activities on his fingers.

"That sounds like some pretty solid science giving us some pretty solid results," John said. "Good job, guys."

Andy and Jared patted themselves on the back.

"Right," John continued. "Well, that dovetails nicely with Asuka's demands, letting us kill two birds with one stone."

"Three, actually," said Jared. "Pilot upgrades, Asuka's demands, and ki blasts. Anyway, now that the science is over, this is just an engineering problem. The how, the what..."

"Speaking of which!" Andy shouted, causing Jared and John to jump. "What about turning this pansy-waist universe into Go Nagai's Evangelion?!"

The glare from the office's lighting reflected ominously off of John's glasses. "In Go Nagai's Evangelion, Shinji would be in a remedial school for _killing_ his own mother, Rei would destroy New York City in a fit of rage, Gendo would sprout tentacles and raze Japan, and Asuka would spend a quarter of the series dressed as a suspiciously hot male mechanic, only to rise up later as the unappreciated series hero."

Jared had grabbed a notepad off his desk and was scribbling furiously upon it. "You forget the end where the giant space vagina eats half of the solar system."

(Let's be perfectly clear on this one point: This all more or less _actually happened_ in _Getter Robo Armageddon._ - _Ed._)

"Oh, I'm not forgetting it..." John conceded with a shudder. "Ever."

The scribbling continued unabated.

John frowned. "You aren't allowed to think that's cool."

Jared gasped in shock. "But it explains everything! It's just like the end of Eva!"

"Yeah!" Andy added. "Just with more explosions!"

John slammed his hand down on his desk. "NOT! COOL! We don't want the _End of Evangelion!_ And Go Nagai's Evangelion is an even worse idea! This needs to be more like _Ranma 1/2_. Wait, forget I said--"

"Then quit tempting me!" Jared whined. "No, that's perfect!" More frantic scribbling. "Swap the genders of the entire cast!"

John made a mental note to fire that notepad into the sun.

"Yes, but how?" Andy assumed the pose of The Thinker.

"We are NOT changing the--how the hell would we even--"

Jared raised a hand. "We just--"

"DON'T ANSWER THAT! We are going to keep this series--"

"We know, we know... upbeat and full of fan service," Jared finished the old battle cry. "What does that mean, anyway? Love Hina with giant robots?"

"Uh, yeah," John said. "We could go with that."

* * *

When Asuka and Shinji arrived at Training Room Four the next day after school, Shinji stared at the Goons' handmade sign for a full minute before Asuka realized he couldn't read English of that complexity and translated it for him.

"That's a silly name," Shinji commented, then the two went inside.

Inside the Goons were standing in the center of the room dressed in their 'training' outfits. Jared in a worn and well-fitting gi with his multicolored belt. Andy also wore a white gi, but it looked new and ill-fitting. John wore a t-shirt and some sweat pants, nearly matching Toji Suzuhara and Shinji's dress. Asuka had elected to wear a gi, but in bright red, and over a sturdy undershirt and an even sturdier bra.

"Is Wondergirl late?" The kraut asked, dropping her bag just inside the door.

"no," Rei said as she walked inside. She wore only her usual school uniform and didn't even seem to notice how everyone else was dressed.

John stepped away from the other two Goons and addressed the room as a whole. "Now that we're all here: the purpose of this meeting. We suspect that A.T. blasts, as employed during the most recent Angel attack, will be an effective weapon against future Angels, and so we wish to train the three pilots who are not yet skilled in their use."

"In short," Asuka grumbled, "We suck and you three are going to make us better."

"Asuka, think of this as an opportunity for all of us to improve--"

"John?" Jared interrupted.

"What?" John sighed.

"Get out of here."

"Excuse me?" John asked.

"I said, get out of here. You already know how to do an A.T. blast and you've neither a personal interest in the pilots' training, or any desire to train yourself. Get out, and let Andy and I take care of things from here."

John stood squarely in front of Jared. "I'm not leaving these three in the care of you two idiots."

"Relax, we're just going to forward three weeks so the pilots are up to snuff and then we'll all go shoot ki blasts down at the firing range. Maybe we can take them for ice cream afterwards." Without waiting for John to counter his declaration, Jared gestured to his comrade. "Andy?"

Andy walked to the row of bags near the door, and from the one with the explosion embroidered on the side, he withdrew a large black piece of cloth. He straightened it out as he walked back to where John and Jared were standing, them held it up. In the center, some white cloth letters spelled out in English:

THREE WEEKS LATER

He held the curtain there for a second, then let it drop to the floor.

"See?" Jared said with a victorious smile. "They're looking fitter already."

John stared.

Jared scoffed at John, then ordered Shinji into the open area next to the ring. Andy scooped up the curtain and returned it to his bag.

"Okay, Ace. Let's see your opening stance."

"Uh, what opening stance?" Shinji said, honestly confused.

Jared frowned. "The one you learned from me three weeks ago."

"You... didn't teach me any opening stance three weeks ago," the First Children countered.

Asuka approached John. "This isn't the kind of training I had in mind, Worm."

"Sohryu, if you want to try and convince them this farce isn't working, you are _more_ than welcome. I'm going for popcorn." John made for the door.

Asuka whipped out a massive wooden mallet, and charged Jared. With a mallet head the size of an oil drum descending towards his head at barely sub-sonic speeds, the Goon didn't even flinch. The next instant, the mallet was sailing free of Asuka's hands, missing Shinji by inches. Asuka was flying in the opposite direction, grimacing in pain.

A moment later, she was looking at Jared's concerned face, laying against the far wall, and fearing her internal organs might need to be put back together... just as soon as her diaphragm started moving so she could breath again. Any second now...

"Hrm, Andy?" Jared said.

The taller, dumber one walked over to the Pervert. "What is it now, Waddell? Played too rough with another of your dolls?"

Asuka snarled at him in silence. Just as soon as the feel returned to her hands, she would choke the stupid out of him.

"Actually, I think I kind of overestimated the progress they've made over the past three weeks."

And kill Jared. Just as soon as she got her breath back. He'd fucked up, embarrassed her one too many times. He had no excuse now, and there wasn't a judge on this Earth who'd convict her. She realized she could still make a fist, and fought to stand.

"You mean they're even bigger weaklings than we thought?!" Andy was saying.

Breath! She could breathe! Gasping, she was pleased to find her her legs didn't feel shaky. She began to advance on Jared. No careless screaming charge now, no idiotic reliance on her Righteous Fury.

Jared ignored Andy, critically watching Asuka's approach like a movie director. "That hair."

Her own hands rose into her view, a red mist clouding her vision. She could see, however, that another set of hands were arresting her wrists, keeping her from her target. She looked to the source of the interference, shifted her targeting sights, and... blinked. "Shinji?"

He looked worried. No, scared. That was definitely his scared face. "Asuka, he's too dumb to realize what he's doing."

"He's not a moose, Shinji! He's a monster!"

"Only in bed, my--"

POW!

Her knuckles stung slightly from the impact.

John seemed to appear from somewhere just outside of her peripheral vision to help Jared to his feet. "You're lucky I came back."

Jared sighed. "Where did we screw up? Do we need another three weeks to toughen them up?"

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!!" Toji screamed. Asuka glanced at him, surprised to see him bleeding profusely from the mouth and covering one eye with his hand.

John sighed. "Jared and Andy have seen far too much anime, and figured that since we're in one, they could just do a... training montage instead of actually doing the training."

Discussion of the Goons' implacable insanity had ensnared the whole of NERV, but actually standing in the face of it was a different thing entirely. Like the difference between hearing about a tornado on the news and having one touch down in your living room.

Toji was the first to recover the power of speech. "What."

"Andy and Jared think this is an anime," John clarified, speaking with the certainty of an expert while his mouth was awash with the words of a madman. "And that it abides by the rules and conventions of an anime."

"And now you don't?" Asuka accused John, belatedly realizing Shinji hadn't let go of her other wrist and shrugging out of his grip. Her traitorous skin felt oddly hot where his fingers had lay.

"Aw, damn. You mean we can't do training montages?" Jared was whining at John.

"Yes. You cannot advance time by holding up a shower curtain and willing it so."

"I told you we should have brought cardboard!" Andy yelled at Jared.

"Where the fuck was I supposed to put that much cardboard? You were there when I did the hammerspace experiments!" Jared shouted.

"Fuck you! I was the one that had to put that thing in my bag!" Andy fired back.

"Are they always like this?" Toji asked Shinji.

Shinji shrugged. "More or less. We kind of got used to it. Uh... are you going to be okay?"

Toji shrugged back. "My lip just stings a bit. It looks worse than it really it."

_Men_, Asuka silently fumed at their shrugging and grunting.

Jared stepped away from John and Andy, looking genuinely apologetic, which was cause enough for Asuka to prepare a fist for deployment. "Asuka," he said, "I'm sorry. I thought you would react faster."

"Why... why you..." Asuka held the fist under his nose, searching for the right words.

"Let's start with some basic sparring, okay? Warm you up for some conditioning."

Andy turned to Toji, giving him the standard male 'are you alive' questioning nod. Toji returned to the nod and Andy ushered to two Children off to the corner for conditioning.

Rei and John watched Jared and Asuka enter the ring.

"I'll put a thousand yen on the psycho bitch," John said to Rei, watching Asuka raise the badfinger in salute without looking at him.

The Goon smirked.

* * *

Three weeks later, the scene was much the same, with the exception of the pilots looking a trifle more fit, and John wearing his usual uniform of dark but well-cut clothes instead of a gym outfit.

The Most Badass Training Room EVER had worn the last three weeks well, and the people inside moved about it like a second home. Toji and Shinji were taking out some Goon-induced frustration on the heavy bags at the back of the room while Rei and Asuka jumped rope in a clear area opposite the big ring. Jared was meditating, facing the far wall. Andy was doing his own kicks at a small target suspended on string.

A small timer set on the edge of the ring went off, and everyone stopped. The four younger pilots shook out their limbs and sat seiza in a row facing the mat. Andy took down his target to join them.

Jared jumped into the ring and promptly did a back tuck without so much as a warm up stretch. "John, how long have we got until the test?"

"Ritsuko said to give her an extra ten minutes, so... forty minutes," John answered. She had actually needed twenty, but Ritsuko Akagi was a driven woman and pride had demanded only ten.

"Good, we can get through everybody. Who's up first today?"

Shinji stood. "I am." He trudged to the ring as if bearing the weight of the One Ring.

"C'mon, Ace. Man up," Jared said, coming off as nagging rather than encouraging.

"I don't like getting beaten up by you every other day," Shinji said, climbing between the ropes.

"Don't you like seeing physical proof that someone cares about you? If I didn't like you, we wouldn't be here."

"And you give me the same speech every time," Shinji said, getting into a loose fighting stance.

"Has the truth changed?" Jared asked.

Shinji sighed. "No."

"Then you understand that I'm not Ikari's puppet?" Jared attacked mid-sentence, but Shinji was ready and deflected the first punch-kick combo. John's eyebrow raised in surprise; most modern prize-fighters would have trouble with that one, and Shinji was evading without setting himself up for a knock-out hit like he was a veteran fighter. Well, except for throwing anything back at Jared.

"C'mon Ace, stop trying to hit me and hit me!" Jared shouted.

"I'm not trying to hi--OOMPH!" Shinji caught Jared's foot in the stomach. An interesting blocking technique, to be sure.

Jared waited to strike like a panther circling a steak. Shinji kept his guard up while he took a few deep breaths and glared at Jared. Then the Goon was standing next to him, swinging at the First Children's head with all of his weight behind the blow. Shinji ducked and tagged Jared on the back of the shoulder, adding to Jared's momentum and sending him into the ropes. Jared took it in stride, rebounding off of the cables with his arms flailing, letting himself land on Shinji.

When the two separated and got to their feet, Jared got in Shinji's face, but spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear him. "A better counter would be to duck something like that, just curl up into a ball on the mat--it should come natural to you. Sometimes, you can make yourself into an obstacle in battle, and that's all that victory may require at that point. Got it?"

Shinji nodded.

"One more round." Jared was attacking before he finished the sentence again, battering Shinji about the ring with strings of punches too fast to make out with the naked eye. He was tagging Shinji with a hit every few seconds until he drove the smaller boy to the edge of the ring, where he switched to slower but sweeping kicks. Unable to stop the more powerful attacks, Shinji switched from just covering his body to dodging without making contact, directing the flow of combat to keep from being cornered. He did an excellent job of it, too, remaining more or less unscathed until Jared called time.

John checked his watch. Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

"Number two!" Jared shouted.

Asuka rose and jumped into the ring. She charged Jared immediately, not waiting for him to start talking and fighting defensively. Jared met her charge with his own, and the two were clashing like colliding trains, their fists literally ricocheting off one-another as they circled the mat. After two minutes of non-stop attacks, Asuka finally faltered for a split-second, and Jared kicked her in the center of the chest, sending her sprawling across the mat.

Slightly out of breath, Jared nodded to himself with a very small smile.

Asuka got to her feet and charged at him again.

This time Jared simply took the hits with big body blocks, using his mass and size advantage to act like a big sponge for her attacks. John realized after a minute that his feet were constantly moving, allowing him to continually be at the wrong range, where Asuka's attacks were robbed of most of their power. After a minute of this he dropped her with a quick sweep. "Too stiff and predictable. You still move like you're in a movie or something. Do I need to use the Bruce Lee speech again?"

Asuka hopped to her feet. "No. It doesn't make sense anyway."

Jared shrugged. "Its pretty damn simple advice: don't telegraph your attacks."

"How do I stop?!" Asuka yelled.

"Fight wi--"

"If you tell me to 'fight without fighting' _one more time_..." Asuka hissed.

Jared didn't take his eyes off of Mt. Asuka as he tried to get his upper brain to function properly. "Okay, okay. Um... relax. Don't be afraid. Every movement in a fight should be natural, automatic."

Asuka launched a snap-kick aimed directly at his groin.

"Yes! That's it!" Jared shouted, side-stepping the attack and tagging her lightly in the shoulder.

His hand came back tangled in some white cloth. He looked at it. A sturdy sports bra. "...That was a little _too_ automatic."

"You..." growled Asuka. "PERVERT!!!"

Jared used the garment to catch Asuka's punch, then smirked at her over the tangle of cloth around her fist. "Try harder."

Asuka kicked him, now in the stomach, sending him on a ballistic trajectory from the mat to the floor, where he immediately bounced to his feet and skittered away like a demented spider with a black belt.

John watched in amusement. He should have probably stopped them by this point. Jared seemed to be doing nothing but pissing Asuka off. She certainly wasn't going to try a Kamehameha on his ass over this, which meant Jared had gotten sidetracked by boobs. Again.

"You fucking _pervert_! You _always_ pull this shit! I'm gonna skin you for this!" Both were running circles around the room like it was an obstacle course.

On the second lap, Andy grunted, stood, and pointed at Toji. "Suzuhara, in the ring."

Jared and Asuka took no notice. On the third lap, Jared spotted John and dropped the bra on his head, then assumed a bizarre pose like he was trying to imitate an Indian God.

The chanting really wasn't necessary.

"I'm not here, I am invisible. I'm not here, I am invisible. I'm not here, I am invisible."

Asuka skidded to a stop next to John. She'd seen Jared dump the loot. Nonetheless, John prepared for something which made preparation moot: The Righteous Fury of a wronged female.

Asuka smiled sweetly. John smiled back, muttering a short prayer that Jared would get caught in the fallout. That green color in Asuka's hair couldn't mean anything good was coming his way.

The Second Children snatched the bra back, then walked past John to erase Jared from this earth. She leaned in, and gave him a light peck on the cheek. "Thanks." The green light, and matching green hair were gone. She smiled a million-watt smile at Jared, who flinched like a gamer dragged into the hated, hated sunlight. Then she walked provocatively out of the room.

Without turning away from the closed door, Jared pushed John's mouth closed and wiped at his bleeding nose. "I need to... research this terrible power known as a Woman's Righteous Fury. It may be the key to unlocking her true potential."

"How about you quit stealing her fucking underwear!" John shouted, finally recovering and decking Jared.

On the floor, Jared rubbed his jaw. "That's it! Heroism! The throne of all that is truly Right and Just, hailing the ability to deliver judgment to anyone, regardless of relative skill."

Andy startled John by speaking up practically at his shoulder. "Yes! Suppose one were to supercharge it? By being essential the _hero_ of a given story arc, one would be able to defeat all comers who interrupt the hero's grand adventure." He smiled at John.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" John asked.

Jared blinked at him. "Why, the Series Hero Effect!"

"S.H.E.? ...You disgust me," said John.

Jared bowed. "Why, thank you."

Andy hopped back into the ring and resumed his sparring match with Toji. Jared sat next to Rei, watching avidly.

John rolled his eyes and left in pursuit of Asuka.

* * *

Asuka was too doors down the hallway in the women's shower room. John propped the door open a few inches with his shoe and shouted into the room. "Sohryu! I can't believe you did that to him. He'll be scarred for life."

"Uleeeve mhuee! Uh dinnuant dooh anaatynnhe!"

"What the..." John frowned in thought. "Asuka, are you washing your mouth out with soap?"

A sound that was likely one of agreement came out of the room.

John wondered if he could keep a straight face as he tried to explain that Jared hadn't necessary done anything wrong. "Asuka, just relax. Jared has the attention span of a gnat on espresso. I'm amazed he remembers your name, day to day. Now, something weird is going on here, something that appears to be affecting your behavior. It hasn't caused anything... damaging, but I fear for the... delicate mental condition of the other Children."

Asuka spat into the sink. "Speak plain Japanese!"

"Your hair keeps changing color with your mood. When it does, your emotions run rampant and become extremely unpredictable. It might be bothering the other pilots and--"

"Yeah, I noticed."

John nearly swallowed his tongue. When the shock faded enough he could make all the parts of his mouth produce sounds distinct from a mating bullfrog, he choked out, "Excuse me?"

"About a week ago. You don't need to tell me what, just which one of you assholes did it."

John forced himself to stop wondering what in the fuck was going on here and keep his face perfectly emotionless. "Uh, okay."

Asuka sighed and shut off the water. "I've been keeping it under control pretty well. Shinji and Rei have been keeping an eye on me, reminding me to reign in my emotions. That's why I'm sucking so hard at this training. I _can't_ relax, I just fuck up worse. I..." Her breath hitched. "Maybe I should just cut my hair. Couldn't hurt, right?"

"Speaking of 'manning up'," John muttered under his breath. "No, not yet at least. There's gotta be some solution to this hair problem. It hasn't affected your piloting skills or sync ratio."

The door was jerked open by Asuka, who glared down at him despite the fact that he had thirty-eight centimeters on the girl. "I haven't fired an A.T. blast yet."

"Neither have the dynamic duo," John countered.

Asuka's glare drifted away from his face like a fall leaf dropping from the tree. She said nothing, but backed into the bathroom, letting the door swing shut.

John pulled his foot back to let it shut completely.

* * *

Forty-three seconds after the pilots showed up, Misato was ready to call off the briefing entirely. She glared at the Goons. "This room is full of six teens who have all recently showered? You three have been fucking things up a lot lately, but _this_ takes the cake. It's against the natural order of things, you abominations!"

"Hm..." John said, and began quickly making notes on his Mini-MAGI.

"Misato," Ritsuko chided gently.

The Major sighed. "Let's make this quick, since even my _watch_ is fogging up. You know the drill. The rotation is John and Ikari up first. Oh, and a little thanks to Suzuhara and Ikari for keeping that ice cream truck... safe from Waddell and Mucha?" Misato looked up from the report in her hands. "What the hell was that about?"

"I'm sorry Major, I do not recall that incident," Jared said coyly.

"Are you talking to my cleavage?" Misato asked icily.

"What was that girls? You want me to move closer?" Jared said, tongue hanging out.

"Ugh." Misato jerked her jacket closed. "And finally, Bob authorized kill decals for your Evangelions, provided the legal team clears it. Lets move out!"

"How much is that gonna cost us?" Andy asked John.

"How would I know the going rate on assassins right this moment?" John snapped as the group ran from the room.

* * *

The pilots quickly assembled at the Eva firing range, little more than a spot of land NERV owned topside that no-one else wanted to live near. Apart from the massive hatch in the ground which admitted Evangelions one at a time to the grassy valley, the only other buildings of note were a small observation bunker filled with remote recording equipment, and an open observation deck for the terminally suicidal.

The plan was to have each of the Goons coach the pilots through using--or at least attempting to use--their A.T. blast attack on the distant targets. Shinji would be up first, then Jared coaching Asuka and Andy working with Toji. Dumb and dumber had been rotating the pilots during their conditioning, with John, Ritsuko, Misato, Sato, Bob, and several dozen other security officers monitoring their every move, but they paired off for training, following some stupid manual written an idiot in a cubicle farm.

Still, Unit-01 had finally risen into position on the elevator, and Misato was on the comm. "Okay, pilot Genoni, it's your show. For now."

"First, let's fire the writers," John grumbled. "Shinji, get into the position and lets see you just bring up an A.T. field."

Unit-01 looked at him like a particularly slow mutt, then faced the targets. After a second, a faint hexagonal pattern shimmered in the air in front of the Eva.

John eyed it critically. "Can you move it towards the target?"

"I don't think so," Shinji replied.

"Okay, take one step towards the target and keep the field up where it is. Don't make a big show of it now, just give me one step."

Unit-01 took a single step forward. The field moved forward with him. "That good?"

John sighed. "Well, I'm officially out of ideas. Jared?" John pulled up the observation deck feed in his plug view screens.

Jared looked directly into the camera, the imprint of a size four foot clearly visible across the middle of his face. "You aren't trying hard enough."

"Then you get up here and coach him!"

"I've got more important matters to attend to," Jared walked away from the camera.

John grumbled. "Okay, Ace. Let's go back to step one. Form an A.T. field."

"Okay," Shinji said.

Once the field was up, John took his hands off of his controls. "Now I want you to relax your body. Don't relax the Eva, just your physical body. Do it slowly. And tell me if you can feel the A.T. field."

And so, that is exactly what Shinji tried to do. For close to ten minutes, his A.T. field went up, went down, and flickered slowly in and out of visibility. Then he dropped the field completely.

"John, I think I've got it."

"Show me," John said, putting aside his waterproof copy of Plato's Dialogues.

Unit-01 stood ramrod straight, made its A.T. field visible, then stood still as the field slowly moved forward like a moving wall trap from a video game.

"YES!!!" John shouted, almost jumping out of his seat.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Unit-02 took the field.

Alone.

"Where the hell is Waddell?" Misato shouted over the area speakers.

From the observation deck a hand was thrust into the air. "Yo."

"What? You're--" Misato's voice went silent for a few seconds. "How the hell did you get out there without being seen by the cameras?"

"How does a bee fly?" Jared asked.

"Cut the zen crap! You're supposed to be working with Asuka!"

Jared ignored the speakers, turning to Unit-02. "Well, my goddess, are you wearing your lucky panties today?"

The Eva glared at Jared, causing the one idiot still standing near him--that would be Toji--to yelp in fear and run away like a kicked dog.

Jared pressed his luck like a man standing before a firing squad. "Oh, that's right. Plug suit, which means _no panties_. While you fail to summon any kind of useful attack, I'm going to imagine what you look like underneath your plug suit, m'kay?"

Unit-02 remained silent. The observation deck quickly cleared of all personnel, save for Jared, who was setting up and easel and loading some paint onto a pallet. "In fact, how about I express it through art? I mean, why hide your beauty from the--"

Jared, focused on mixing his colors, failed to see the A.T. field shimmering before Unit-02 collapse into a ball of light in the Eva's hand, and he was about to put brush to canvas when the cackling sphere of destruction left Unit-02's hands, heading for his head at the speed of sound.

As impossible as it should have been, Jared had enough time to turn his head and see what was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and recite their last will and testaments.

He had no time for a pithy one-liner before impact.

* * *

Misato watched the observation deck explode into a million flaming pieces on the main view screen, and was about to jump into the air with an exuberant shout when she remembered that other pilots had been near that fresh crater, and that the Goon may, _just may_ have survived that.

"Pilots! Report!" She yelled into the comm. "Someone get me a status on the connecting hallway."

"Hallway mostly intact," Matoko said quickly. "Main hatch not responding, blast doors down. Secondary doors are all right."

"We're okay, Major," John's slightly annoyed voice announced over the voice line. "I shut the branch doors behind us. Andy was back there, and I don't know if... hm... someone should get a repair crew down here."

Misato was about to ask him for more details when a video display popped up, labeled as a feed from Genoni's Mini-MAGI. The camera panned shakily across a messy hallway. The walls were mostly intact, except for the huge slabs of armor embedded at one point--what remained of the blast doors. Beyond that was a smoking crater where the observation deck used to be. Some inane voice in the back of Misato's head mused that the crater in both the main feed and the Mini-MAGI was indeed the same, just shown from different angles. She sighed. "Firing tests are done for today. Clear a spot in the schedule for Suzuhara. Pilot Sohryu, get your Eva back to the elevator. Matoko--"

"Recovery crew ETA is four seconds," Matoko said with a wink.

"Thanks," Misato said.

"Well, at least her training ended in a bang," Ritsuko said casually. Everyone else in the Command Center looked at her. Not a word was spoken, except by Ritsuko as she said, "Well, someone had to say it."

* * *

Hours later in Commander Ikari's office, the explosion that took out the Eva Firing Range Primary Observation Deck was playing in a continuous loop on a small projection screen that seemed to pop out of the surface of Ikari's polished desk.

Ritsuko stood before said desk, looking irritated.

"Any new theories?" Fuyutsuki said, not moving from his post standing two meters to Ikari's right.

Ritsuko took a deep breath. "Unnecessary. As projected by the MAGI, these A.T. blasts are an extension of the measured neurological activity the Evas respond to on command. Everything is within projected parameters."

"Excellent," Ikari said, though Ritsuko often felt as though she were looking at a cardboard cutout with a well-hidden speaker. "And the Arrivals?"

"Still nothing useful. Waddell either won't or can't explain how he turned up in the lower hallway unharmed. Mucha was peeled off of a four ton blast door that should have squished him like a bug and of course he claims his survival was due to his power by birthright or similar nonsense. Genoni came forward and promised me he'd interrogate them with his own methods."

"Did he have anything to say about the missing plans?"

"The Angel Compatibility Project? Claims he's never heard of it. He was lying, of course."

"Of course," Ikari said, and sighed. "Our schedule does not require that information for quite some time, so let Genoni stew. Mucha has nothing of value for the moment, but Waddell..." Ikari's tone expressed his displeasure.

"Those are his words exactly," Ritsuko said. "He refused to elaborate, even under interrogation."

"It is not possible he was 'miraculously thrown clear' of that A.T. blast," Ikari said as if reiterating that two plus two equaled four. "I will have Section Chief Yamanaki deal with him this evening. Dismissed."

* * *

In spite of the inherent danger, Section Chief Yamanaki had ordered pilot Waddell to _his_ office for the official dressing down. He had to admit, tardiness was not the first danger that came to mind.

Missing this shot might be.

And so, Yamanaki turned his mind to the game of simulated golf before him, and was on the eighth green by the time Waddell rang the buzzer.

Yamanaki didn't shut down the simulator, didn't even put down his club as he pressed a button on his desk to buzz in the irritating American. "Late again? I expected nothing less for trash such as yourself."

Waddell threw himself at the nearest chair and defied fate and chance by landing in it without breaking any bones. "Geez, you sound like my boss."

"I am your boss," Ikki deadpanned.

"I mean my old--oh shit, I hope I don't get fired... what am I thinking? Of course I'm going to get fired, we've been gone for months. Heh, actually, I wonder how freaked out everyone is. Andy's mom probably pitched a fit... I feel really sorry about that, even though I wasn't the one that zapped us here..." Waddell stopped his monologue as Yamanaki sat behind his desk.

Yamanaki smiled thinly as he could manage and folded his fingers neatly together in front of him, hoping it would keep him from reaching for desktop-littering knick-knacks. "I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?"

Waddell looked back as if expecting him to reveal a hidden camera. "You did now. What's up?"

"NERV's repair bills," said Yamanaki, watching the pilot carefully.

Waddell did not so much as flinch. "And?"

Yamanaki took a deep breath and spat words at him like bullets. "Waddell, you contemptible fool!" His vocal chords shifted gears. More calmly, he said, "You were expecting something along those lines?"

The Goon shrugged. "More or less. I wish I had witnesses, though."

The Chief gave his comment a moment of thought and decided he would have to puzzle it out later. "The last time I chewed you and your friends out, I thought it might have had an effect."

"I'm glad we were able to rid you of that ridiculous notion."

Yamanaki nodded. _Thanks for nothing_. "Perhaps we could be civil--if such a thing is possible for an American such as yourself--and you could answer a question or two."

"No problem, boss," the Goon said with a smile.

"How is it you're alive and unharmed after getting caught in an explosion that left a twelve meter crater?"

"You know how in hand-to-hand fights the best blocks don't stop an attack, but just deflect the energy of incoming strikes so they're not much of a threat? It's kinda like that."

Now he knew what kind of snowstorm the Tactical Commander had been living in. "You managed to move from the cage to the observation deck without being picked up on internal security systems. If there is a flaw in our systems, it needs to be found and corrected."

"Boss, I could write a bookshelf worth of reports on the security flaws in this place. Do you want the short list or do you want me to set up a detail to fix them all?"

"Give me a list. You're not qualified to direct construction efforts," Ikki retorted.

"Why not? That's what my previous job was preparing me for," Waddell said.

"There's no such record of you having a job in NERV, in Japan, or even in the United States. In fact, there's no record of you to be found _anywhere_," the Chief said.

"Well, that was on another Earth, so to say. How's this: I get tested for competency in Mechanical Engineering and if I pass, I get to assist in tightening the security within NERV?"

"How about: No."

"Then I'll modify the Evangelions."

"You'll do no such thing!"

"After I finish modifying my company car."

"How about after my DEAD BODY IS COLD AND BURIED!"

"Boss, I have to say you are my favorite minor character _by far_."

Ikki scoffed. "Waddell, you are as air-headed as you are indecipherable."

Jared beamed. "Thanks!"

"Likewise, now get out of my office."

Waddell did something with his hands, and the office suddenly filled with cheap special effects smoke.

Ikki coughed. Once. Then announced to the office, "That's coming out of his paycheck."

* * *

Andy stepped out of the hospital and took a breath of free air. Not that there was really anything dramatic about leaving Infirmary 12 and entering the rest of NERV, it was just one little door with a white hallway on one side and a green one on the other. "Now, to get back to the office." He stood there for ten seconds, brain working furiously until he exclaimed, "Aha! So that's how to unify Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. So elegant... Bah! That's useless, brain! Useless! No one needs to know that! Forget it this instant!"

He slapped himself in the side of the head and was at the nearest vent in five seconds flat. Inside the dark, cold embrace of the base's ventilation system, his heart was at peace, his stomach descending rapidly. Almost like the entire vent was coming loose from its mounts and was about to plunge through the ceiling of the next level.

Wait a minute...

The thunderous crash sounded like the end of the world inside the duct. Andy could feel body parts he did not know he possessed still rattling as he climbed out of the mess of metal and onto a mess of smashed drywall and dented red metal... Andy blinked. The duct that had just broken loose from its mountings appeared to have crashed through a ceiling and trashed the roof of an otherwise cherry American muscle car. He looked around, immediately spying Jared looking at him as if he'd just walked in on his parents... no, Jared would take notes and maybe pictures if that happened to him, the perverted bastard. The look of horror was more like... Andy didn't want to delve any deeper into Waddell's psyche, so he moved on to the guy standing next to Waddell.

One point eight meters. Tan. Muscular without being too bulky. Leather jacket. Sunglasses. A hat like Paul Newman had in _Crocodile Dundee_. Boomerang in one hand, other hand stopped in a weird follow-through, almost as if he'd thrown a boomerang from it as well. Who used two boomerangs this day in age?

"MY CAR!" Waddell shouted in apoplectic fury, suddenly moving like a video taken off pause. His hands pointed at both Andy and the weird boomerang dude as if disconnected from his brain but still trying to help out any way they could.

Andy hopped off the dented, antique vehicle. "So it appears to be. But enough whining, Waddell. We have to... to..." Andy trailed off, a rare and momentary memory lapse overcoming him.

Waddell paid him no mind, instead turning a look of utter rage on the only other person in the room, who audibly gulped, then as Waddell tackled him, screamed.

Andy ignored the sounds of violence, dodged a haphazardly-thrown boomerang and a few flailing arms, and tapped his foot furiously while he drew upon every scrap of his considerable and highly trained intellect to recall why he had come down here to redirect Waddell's efforts.

Speaking of Waddell, the self-righteous cur was standing in front of him again, wiping something off of his hand. "Okay, asshole. We can do laundry now."

"Laundry!" Andy announced in rapturous glee. Once again his superior insight and memory catapulting him above and behind the limitations of other puny humans. "Yes, we must do the laundry!"

"In your car," Waddell suggested graciously, though forgetting to append 'my liege.'

"Certainly," Andy said graciously. He scanned the room for another vent.

* * *

John had pretty much finished digesting his dinner by the time Andy and Jared blundered there way in through the front door of the apartment. He was honestly surprised they'd found their way home. "How did the laundry go?" He asked from the kitchen, listening to both take off their shoes in the entryway.

"Laundry?" Jared echoed, as they both went silent, apparently frozen in horror.

"Idiot!" Andy smacked Jared in the back of the head. "Dunce! Moron!"

"You were driving!" Jared shouted back, covering his head.

John sighed. "Good grief."

Andy eventually left Jared cowering on the floor and stalked straight to his room. Jared picked up things in the entry and threw himself on the couch.

"Any new theories?" John asked, continuing his slow stirring of the curious liquid in a small pot on the stove.

Jared shook his head. "Not really. That was my ace in the hole. Worked great."

"Except she wasn't able to do it twice," John countered.

"We need to cut her hair or something."

John snorted at the suggestion. "Subject change. How _did_ you escape that blast?"

"That little firecracker? Feh. It was nothing."

"That's MY line, weakling," Andy thundered from the hallway.

"What are you cooking, anyway?" Jared asked, rising, walking to counter, and peeking over it to look in the pot.

"Brewing, actually," John replied.

"Same difference," Andy said, sitting down next to Jared.

"Well, as much as I appreciate Jared's special blend of coffee in the morning. I figured we needed something for other times of the day. So... I've decided to try to make Super Dew."

With the last two words out of his mouth, thunder cracked ominously outside. Andy looked at the windows, which gave him a view of Tokyo-3, clear skies, and the orange fingers of a setting sun. "Those freak lightning storms are getting annoying."

Jared frowned, and look at the pot's contents again. "Did you just say Super Dew?"

Another peal of thunder shook the balcony windows.

"Yes," John said, giving the Goons a mysterious look. Not that anyone could tell. A special team at NASA had calculated the positioning of the kitchen's rack lighting to keep that glare on John's glasses.

"How?" Jared asked.

"Well, first I boosted the caffeine content of Mountain Dew by extracting pure caffeine from tea leaves and coffee. The initial product was a complete failure in terms of taste, safety, and result. Since then I've been experimenting constantly to refine the end product and accomplish my goal."

"Goal?" Andy asked. "We aren't talking about soccer."

John ignored Andy's blithering. "All three of us are hyperactive, Andy. The Dew doesn't affect us like normal people. Because we're already at a heightened level of activity, stimulants like caffeine or Ritalin burn us out--they slow us down."

Jared's gaze into the pot shifted to one of suspicion. "So you're trying to give us a sleeping agent?"

"Hardly. Because we're hyper and attention deficit, it's hard for us to focus. Taking the aforementioned stimulants slow us down enough to focus on tasks. But what I'm trying to do is give us that kind of focus in our natural hyper state or possibly even higher, without the burn out. With just a sip we'd be able to enter the Zone. Basically, I'm trying to make Bullet Time in a bottle."

"Whoa. Cool," said Jared, in perfect imitation of Kenau Reeves.

"You're MAD! MAD I SAY!!!" Andy howled, then returned to his normal voice, which was still a loud yell to normal people. "Does it work yet?"

By way of reply, John dipped a spoon into the pot, and withdrew a liquid that was almost glowing, faintly. He sipped. His head instantly jerked to the side, flinging the spoon out of his mouth. It embedded itself into the wall while John disappeared.

"Awww man!" Jared complained. "He didn't make Bullet Time in a bottle! That idiot created a teleportation elixir!"

"What's that thumping noise?" Andy asked. The two rushed around the counter to see John in a fetal position on the floor before the stove, his body vibrating. After a few seconds, a shaking hand rose to and grasped at the edge of the counter. With a death grip on Formica, he pulled himself to his feet. His hair was standing on end and each eye was looking in a different direction.

"Not quite yet," he said, words warbling as if his diaphragm was fighting a wild bear, "But I'm close. I think I just saw into the future."

"What's it look like?" Jared asked.

John spoke as if carrying news from another planet. "Fist of the North Star."

High-fives were exchanged all around.

"What would happen if a normal human got a hold of the finished project?" Andy asked.

"Hard to say. My first answer would be they might burst into flames. But it might also be that they get so hyped up that they actually move in Bullet Time. They could just go completely insane. I can't really say..."

"That reminds me," Jared said.

"Reminds you of what?" John asked.

"_Love Hina_ in giant robots? Not happening."

"Agreed," said Andy and John in unison.

* * *

Not much later that evening, Jared was going through his kata on the roof of the apartment complex. Had he come up a few hours earlier, he would have gotten a nice _Karate Kid_ groove what with the setting sun for a backdrop and all. As it was, he could barely see his hands when Misato called him on his Mini-MAGI. "All right, Commander, who do you want me to kill?"

Misato's voice came over the connection. "Knock it off, Waddell. The police are complaining--"

"Didn't do it."

"--Of course not. There are two Americans looking lost and suspicious. They might be friends of yours. I've uploaded their tracking data to your Mini-MAGI. Find 'em, find out what they're doing."

"One question, Major," said Jared.

"If you're wondering why suspicious Americans get automatically booted up to us, its because of what you three have been pulling ever since you showed up here."

"Uh, okay. That answers my question exactly."

"Call me if anything goes wrong, otherwise file your report with Yamanaki in the morning." Misato signed off without a goodbye.

Jared sighed, watching the audio icon disappear. He was terrible with directions, even with the Mini-MAGI map. He might have been able to get around in his home town okay, but it was one hundredth the size of Tokyo-3, and he'd lived there for a decade. "Hopefully this won't take all night."

* * *

Jared spent less than an hour getting to the troublesome Americans, during which time they appeared to move in a slow circle around an outdoor shopping arcade. Both were a head taller than the average Japanese, and both were wearing mundane suits, minus ties. Jared spied on them from the shadows for a minute, then ducked into one of the shops and bought a cheap black suit just as the joint was closing. He changed in an alley, then he circled around the Americans and stopped them as they were leaving the arcade.

In English, he greeted them. "Good evening, gentlemen."

By a blessed twist of fate, guns were not immediately pulled on the Goon. The one with shorter hair merely breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Good evening! Boy, it's nice to find someone here that has an American accent!"

"Er, yeah. Listen, you guys seem really lost, and my boss wants me to see if I can get you where you want to go in a hurry."

The duo looked utterly confused by this. Short Hair said, "Um, okay. I think. We're just trying to get to the far side of town, apparently the seventh station on the the red line."

At least they were headed in the right direction. Jared wondered if he would be getting overtime pay for this while he gestured down the sidewalk. "Well, you're in luck, you were headed in the right direction. I'll take you all the way out to the seventh station, but no further. Sound okay?"

"Yes," said Short Hair. "And thank you."

A few moments later, the station was coming into view and Short Hair felt up to making small talk. "So, how long have you been in Japan?"

"Just a few months," Jared replied.

"Oh. Work?" Asked Short Hair.

"Yes," Jared said.

"What kind of work?" Short Hair asked.

Jared glanced at the pair, seeing Longer Haired Guy holding his briefcase to his chest like it might jump out of his arms and make a run for it. He decided to avoid mentioning his NERV affiliation. "I do private security contracted to government operations. Normally, a uniformed police officer would have approached you and offered to help, but I was available."

They stepped onto the platform. Jared tapped his Mini-MAGI and pulled up a train schedule... which was comprised entirely of numbers and icons he'd never seen before. "Useless," he muttered, and killed the display. "Oh, never mind. There's a train now."

Indeed, the red line was incoming. Just one train change and another forty minutes. Then he could get back to chasing skirts and pretending like he had the faintest idea of how this insane city was laid out.

Jared paid for tickets for all three of them without thinking about, and was almost startled by the English 'thank you' that came from the pair. Minutes later, they were speeding down the tracks aboard a mostly empty train car.

Short Hair dude waited for almost a minute before opening his mouth to ask Jared a question, only to be cut off as the inter-car doors opened to admit four youths that were poorly dressed and hoping they looked tougher than they really were. Jared debated for a minute whether to prompt Short Hair to ask anyway, or feign a sudden attack of nacrolepsy and see how things developed. The youths collectively looked like a cat that had just gotten into a birdcage, and their very presence screamed danger at Jared. He fought off the urge to yawn and feign sleep.

Little did they know that this particular birdcage housed a cybernetic attack dog that could shoot laser beams from its eyes.

Jared sighed as the only other person in the car fled in carefully ordered, rigidly Japanese terror. He leaned towards Short Hair. "Hey, I didn't catch your name."

Short Hair didn't take his eyes off of the toughs. "Oh. Uh... Jerry. Jerry Gullman."

"Jerry, tell your buddy not to move," the Goon said. No sooner had the words left his mouth, then the business end of a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun made intimate contact with his forehead. "It must be a Monday," he said, casually putting the kid into a painful arm bar, and flinging him out of the nearest window.

_Damn it!_ He was going to take that gun and use it to give the other three morons a lead enema. Sometimes, he was too good for his own... er, good. Yeah.

Wait, was that a shoe-wrapped foot headed for his face? Jared ducked under the kick, giving the passing foot just enough of a slap that his attacker's balance was thrown off for a split-second. When the youth's eyes shifted to the Goon's right, Jared let loose a quick jab with his left hand, knocking the kid over.

While the remaining two pretended they knew something about fighting, Jared calculated a few trajectories. Then he dodged a punch, deflated a lung, and paused to stop the other guy's heart while blocking a pair of kicks with his other arm.

Mister Two Left Feet then decided that kicking wasn't really his thing and pulled out a knife.

"Oh, bother," Jared monotoned. He slapped the knife away on the first swipe. "Look, you're hardly even--" And side-stepped the sucker-punch, hitting the youth right in the floating ribs, snapping several. The boy dropped like a sack of wet sand, gasping and choking.

Jerry was about to open his mouth, prompting Jared to put a hand up to forestall him talking. He corrected his stance, senses still screaming at him to pay attention. This left him a little confused--after all, there weren't any cute girls nearby.

The lights in the train went off. Jared raised his guard, knowing that _now_ would be the perfect time to strike. _Now_ was when something sharp pierced the center of one open palm. He dropped back, body-checking Jerry's friend into the nearest seat as something took out the window over his shoulder. He pulled out the bladed weapon that he had 'caught' with skin and muscle, and blocked. Unable to see, he could only guess that it was a sword his meager throwing knife was holding at bay.

The train passed a light, casting dim yellow beams of illumination into the train, sweeping from the back of the car to the front. A shadow was attacking him. A black shadow with a thin shadow blade pressed against his stolen weapon. Then darkness again.

_Please don't let there be fangs in that shadow. Please please please please pleeeaaase not again..._

The pressure lifted from his blade. He turned, slashed across the seats, kicked at the space just in front of Jerry. Nothing. _Damn. Okay, follow your instincts Jared. Instincts!_ His free hand, though wounded, answered the call of duty, lashing out at chest level. Just before Jared could curse his reflexes, he grabbed something soft, giving, and made entirely from cloth. He recognized it about halfway through a hip-throw that could flip a tank. A collar. He'd grabbed someone by the collar. Possibly Jerry's buddy. Yet the collar wasn't right. Too thick. Rough but worn... Like a gi. Or... _A ninja uniform._

Jared followed the throw with a sweep, hitting only the seat. He covered his head as his ankle screamed for attention, and nearly broke his wrist deflecting another sword strike aimed to cleave his skull in two. They passed another sodium-yellow light, and Jared stood to face the seven foot tall shadow that glared at him from two crimson orbs glowing like supermarket bar-code scanners.

Once darkness reclaimed the train car, Jared struck, intending only to kill anything that was still moving. His blows seemed to just barely brush smoke, always deflected without hitting. He might have been fighting the Smog Monster. The occasional sword attack came out of nowhere, blocked by pure luck and and an undersized blade that let the impact rattle his bones. Then a random barrage of shiruken, dodged at the last second, or cut out of the air with his tiny knife. Then it was the sword again. He blocked the first slash, then dove forward, plowing into the next one and pushing it back. The ninja slid to one side, and Jared had him. He jumped into the air and kicked in both directions at once, performing a perfect mid-air split that would either end the fight or get him castrated.

His right foot connected. Thrown into the left seat, he threw the knife as he rolled to his feet, heard it 'ping' off of the blocking sword, and knew instantly how the blade was positioned, and with it, the ninja. He moved without a second thought, seeing the invisible battle play out in his mind.

Slash. He ducked, the ninja kicked. Knew right where he'd be. Jared had his arm ready, swung it behind the knee, and caught the foot with his other arm as he twisted, bringing down his opponent in a leg-lock. The ninja tried to kick him off, of course, and that was the opening he'd been waiting for. He let go of the leg, dropped an axe-kick on the ninja's wrist, smashing bones between his shoe and the floor. One flick of his foot, and the sword sailed neatly into his hand.

Pointy end first.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" He screamed even as he grabbed the handle with his uninjured hand and spun, decapitating the recovering ninja just as the rail light swept through the train for the third time, illuminating an airborne head with surprised eyes. Also, the huge swath of blood spewing from the neck stump and said severed head sailing merrily towards the Goon and the two poor guys behind him.

Then it went dark again, and the liquid landed on everything. Jared remained still for a second, took a deep breath, then pulled the sword out of his twice-pierced hand as quickly and gently as he could.

"Ooow..." He dropped the sword and stood tall. "Okay! Turn the fucking lights on!"

Obediently, the train car filled with light again.

Unnamed dude with long hair was okay. Jerry was okay. Long Hair had his suitcase in a death grip, and both were white as sheets in a lake of bleach. Three mostly or completely dead bodies filled up the middle of the train car, with a bisected ninja and a blood-soaked sword next to Jared.

The Goon sighed. Wiped in futility at the blood on his face. Pulled out his ID. Aimed it at Jerry. "Now... What. The fuck. Is. In. That. _Briefcase._"

End Chapter 9

**

* * *

**

**A note from the author:** Holy shit! I'm still alive! The Goons (well, one of them at least) are murdering ninja! What on earth (or in anime) is happening to our beloved whacky giant robot story? You'll find out (maybe) in the final chapter of Book 1, coming April first!

No, that's not an April Fool's joke.

Seriously.

No, really. Now quit bugging me.


	10. Chapter 10

Neon Genesis Goonvangelion

Book 1: The Overdue Re-Write

Chapter 10: Machina / Lamest Closing Chapter Ever!

(Hello readers! Did Youtube have that _Getter Robo_ clip? Did you see the part where they cut three planets in half with an energy ax? Anyway, onto the boring-by-comparison story! - _Ed._)

Misato opened the door to the interrogation room mindful of the last time the Goons were summoned here. Thankfully, the room's sole occupant was not swinging from ceiling fixtures that should be impossible to swing from, or drugged and ranting about invisible fairy-tale beasts that were assaulting him. Depressingly, he was sitting still, staring at the far wall, not even noting her presence.

Jared. Quiet.

Misato observed the goon while she beat her fight-or-flight response into submission. Once her pulse rate put on the brakes, she approached the room's only table, setting a slim folder on the desk in front of him. The usual cavalcade of nervous tics alarmed her by not being there. Who was this calm, resigned statue that replaced Pilot Waddell?

"I'm alive, in case you were wondering," he said without looking up.

Was the crazy American trying to imitate Shinji? The Major shrugged at her internal question and sat. Opened the folder before her slowly. Looked her subordinate square in the eye. Normally, she would need a set of eyeballs in her cleavage to meet his gaze. She adjusted 'the girls.' The Goon didn't blink. "Pilot Waddell-"

"And they're dead."

Misato closed the folder. She didn't have time for this crap. "Waddell-"

"I KILLED THEM!" Jared howled, leaping to his feet and pounding a fist on the table. He pulled out a CD player repaired with duct tape and some battered multi-media speakers that looked practically prehistoric. A melancholic tune on violins played tinnily from the speakers. "...I was just a boy." Jared hung his head while the dirge played. Sakura petals fell around him forlornly. He discretely pushed the stop button when the CD player started skipping.

"If you're done?"

Jared swept the audio gear off of the table and sat, eyes glued to her neckline. His foot tapped a random pattern on the floor. "I'm not. Could you pant for me?"

Misato's fingers moved to reopen the folder and scrapped against bare metal. Her frown deepened. She blinked, then Jared was reading the report, halfway through in fact.

"Hmm..." He didn't look up.

"Pilot Waddell!" Misato held her hand out expectantly.

Jared leisurely handed the folder back to her. "Did I pass?"

"Pass what?" Misato snapped.

Jared shrugged, picking at the table top with his thumb. "That carefully arranged play to gauge my fighting abilities."

The Major sighed. "Waddell, not everything is about you damned Americans."

Jared smirked. "Oh yes it is."

Misato opened her folder. "Did it occur to you that we might want to capture the ninja alive and question him?"

Jared stared blankly at her.

"Waddell?" Misato prompted.

"Oh, you were being serious. That... was an actual question. Um..." He pulled at his collar, eyes like a mouse strapped to a tiny electric chair. "I-you..." He shook his hands at her.

"Well?"

"I'm sorry, I just-I can't believe... well I can, but... Look, Misato, do you really try to interrogate the assassin? What am I going to ask him? 'Who sent you?' I mean, that doesn't exactly... oh. I probably should have asked... who sent him. Okay, I'm sorry. Next time I get attacked in public by a fully-trained ninja while protecting industrial secrets, I'll literally stick my neck in front of the business end of a sword and ask the assassin who he works for instead of keeping myself and my charges alive."

"You're a trained ninja and you had him on the ropes."

Jared stopped tapping his foot and looked at Misato like she'd just revealed to him that this whole thing was happening in someone else's head. Slowly, he spoke, "What was that?"

Misato didn't bat an eyelid. "I said, you're the trained ninja. You were clearly winning that fight. Why didn't you interrogate him?"

"What the hell makes you think I'm a trained ninja?"

"Waddell, this is no longer cute. Do you really expect me to believe you aren't a fully trained ninja?"

The Goon put his hands up in surrender. "I'm not a ninja. I'm just the second-greatest martial artist to ever live."

"And you're completely full of shit."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss."

"Where did you get Ninjitsu training?" Misato asked using her 'official' voice.

"I picked it bits and pieces here and there."

"Waddell, that statement is so obviously and patently a lie, I do not even have to pick it apart."

"Look, if someone in NERV or S-those other guys, wanted to make me or... my comrades look bad, there's certainly easier ways of doing it. I'm sure the cops have means in place to deal with ninja threats-besides throwing me at them. And we're being watched by like a dozen different departments too, if this was really a grab for the engineers' hardware, they would have waited until I buggered off. Too much heat. Someone _wanted_ me there. Someone _wanted_ me to fight that ninja, to see what I was made of. Possibly to take me out... hell, for all I know, it was there to kidnap me."

"Then the hardware was a decoy?"

"Bingo, not that I'm there yet."

"Where yet?" Misato asked.

"Nowhere," Jared confirmed with confidence.

Pilot and commanding officer watched each other closely for a minute.

"What makes you sure?" Misato finally asked.

"Ritsuko had an identical unit in her lab when Andy and I asked her about ki attacks."

"And what is it?" Misato pressed.

Jared sat perfectly still again. All of his usual fidgeting was gone, eyes dead calm. "A brainwave synthesis and encryption-slash-decryption system. Sort of a little AI on a chip, if one had a personality to apply to it."

Misato didn't dare breathe, not when every neuron in her head was focused on keeping her expression the same skeptical, scathing glare it had been since she walked into the room. She didn't know quite what she had stumbled across, but Jared had just told her something very, very bad. She licked her lips, mouth working on autopilot, tone sarcastic. "Well, that's helpful. Do you have anything constructive to add to my report?"

Jared leaned back in his hair, his usual mannerism back in place as though it had never left. "It was twenty-four degrees outside last night, not twenty-five."

Misato didn't even snark at him as she left the room.

* * *

Ritsuko was waiting outside, the poor lighting in the green corridor giving her skin a sickly pale coloration. "Well?"

"I need a broom," Misato answered, opening the door on the far side of the hallway labeled 'Cleaning Supplies.'

"For what?" Ritsuko asked slowly, knowing the answer was not going to make her happy.

"To beat the living shit out of that retard," Misato said crossly. She picked over several vicious-looking fighting mops, and settled on a stout metal rake instead. As she picked it up, power seemed to flow forth from it, undeniable power that could carve apart the foundations of the world like a chainsaw through cheesecake.

Ritsuko leaned against the door frame of the cleaning closet. "Not that I'm ever opposed to violence towards Americans on general principles, and towards the Goons because they're the Goons, but did he do something specific to earn this beating?"

Misato tested the balance of the rake and waved Ritsuko out of her way. "He stole NERV property."

Ritsuko moved aside. "And hid it in that little lab attached to their apartment?"

Misato stopped in the doorway. "You know where it is?"

"Yes," Ritsuko confirmed. "We don't have them under surveillance for no reason."

"Can we pretend you didn't say that and let me beat him up anyway?"

"Be my guest," Ritsuko gestured to the cell door with a bow. "This conversation never happened."

Misato gave her a feral grin, opening the interrogation room door.

"Misato!" Jared said from inside. "Oh, moving onto the kinky stuff already?"

"Yeah," Misato said from inside. "Bend over."

Ritsuko grimaced and closed the door.

* * *

Asuka was not amused. The Goons, who apparently did little but think up and execute convoluted plans to piss off all of NERV and most of the civilian population above, had summoned her to a little-used storage area. When she arrived, who was there to greet her, but John. Wearing a cheap guard uniform that looked like a rental costume, and sitting behind a desk that was a yard sale reject.

Asuka put on her best smirk as she approached. "Hi Worm, what was the call about?"

John gestured to one of the storage room doors. "Training. Jared wants to talk to you."

"Okay," Asuka made for the door.

"Hold on a sec, firecracker. You aren't carrying any weapons, are you?"

Asuka whirled around and shot him a glare. Just who did he think he was? "Just who do you think you are?"

"In charge, for one thing," The Worm said, nonplussed by the glare. Slowly, he rose and put his hand on the doorknob. "The rules are simple," he drawled. "Stay on the right. Don't make eye contact with the other prisoners. Don't talk to the other prisoners. Jared will be in the last cell." He opened to the door to what must have been a broom closet.

Inside was a long hallway. Concrete wall on one side. Jail cells on the other. Asuka leaned around John to look at the plaque on the door. 'Cleaning Supplies.'

She sighed. "Right, Worm."

He closed the door behind her. Inside, the walls were painted concrete, the cell doors steel bars. Andy was in the first cell, dressed in orange and playing checkers with a stuffed koala bear. "CHEATER!" He thundered, pointing at the bear and shaking with fury.

She moved on. In the next cell sat John, wearing prison black-and-whites and playing a nameless tune on a mouth harp.

Next cell was Andy again, and Asuka paused. Did she really want to go back and investigate? Was there trap doors hidden in this... this...

She shook her head and moved on. She wasn't going to wake any more brain cells on this.

After another three cells of John, and two more of Andy, trying their hands at a few prisoner stereotypes from old American movies, she ran into Jared. "All right, Pervert. What's up?"

Without looking up from the pile of papers he was scribbling on, "Bone Shinji,"

Okay, so this _was_ going to be a waste of time. "How is that relevant to our training?"

"It's not," The Jared conceded. "I just want you to know I'm all for vigorous hip thrusts on a horizontal plane."

Asuka had to actually bite her tongue to keep it from firing back an incendiary reply. "Anything else revolutionary you wish you reveal?"

Jared stopped scribbling and looked at her. "I'd like to invite you to dinner-"

"Go fuck yourself."

"You didn't let me finish," said the Pervert. "The whole crew-us Americans, the other Eva pilots, and a good chunk of the bridge crew, plus a few extras-are going out to dinner. A social act to cement the ties of this new team, if you will."

Asuka stared. "That's... actually not a bad idea."

Jared wrote something on one of the papers with a flourish. "Hah! Done!" He looked at Asuka. "Oh, I need to ask you, what do you think of Shinji?"

"He's a wimp."

Jared waited with a knowing smile that wilted to a displeased frown. "That's it?"

Asuka shrugged. "He's a coward. Useless on the battlefield unless you push him until something breaks, can't be depended on to-"

"That's a combative analysis." Jared mused, setting down his pen. "Commonly used on personal grounds to keep oneself at a distance from others, usually to hide from remembrance of past pain, particularly when one does like to be thought of as weak."

Asuka blinked.

"So, if you dropped the ass-kicking attitude around him, he might open up. Shinji is a reflexive pacifist. He has his place in combat, but to put that analysis above what you think of him as a person." He sighed. "Like me, you are a reflexive fighter. The two mix like... well, remember that little bomb we used to take down the last Angel?"

Asuka nodded. "That actually makes some kind of sense. Who are you and what have you done with the real Jared?"

"Will the real Jared please stand up?" The Goon asked the cell walls. "Anyway, I need to deliver this manuscript. I'll let Misato pick and place and time for dinner. Sound good?"

"Manuscript?" Asuka asked, already turned to leave.

"Hey, we three _are_ writers," Jared said.

Asuka scoffed and left. Moments after the door at the end of the hall shut behind her, John stepped into the corridor from the other end.

"Success?" He asked the Goon in the cell.

Jared shrugged. "We'll call it one. Now, to talk to Ritsuko about a new Mini-MAGI."

"Oh, have some ideas floating around in that cesspool you call a brain?" John asked.

Jared shook his head. "Nope. I broke the experimental one she gave me. I need my base model back."

"She'll skin you alive!" John exclaimed. "Can I bring a video camera?" He quickly added, then thought for a second and continued with another question. "How'd you break it?"

"That chip I stole was designed to build an AI system. The Mini-MAGI has enough processing power to handle the rest of the processing. So... I put them together."

"And it blew up," Andy finished from the next cell. "Boom! Whee!"

"No, actually. It just quit working. No puff of smoke or anything. I was afraid a Thermite charge would go off or something, so I was really careful... but apparently not careful enough."

"So what kind of AI were you trying to build?" John asked.

"Uh... I don't actually remember what I was trying to make. I'm sure it was a good idea though." Jared nodded to himself.

"How do you know?" John pressed.

"Because I tried it," Jared said.

"You said the same thing about-"

Andy was cut off by Jared waving his arms around and yelling. "At the time! It was a good idea at the time!"

* * *

The Goons were lucky that Ritsuko was in her office when they arrived, but then John and Andy got very mad when Jared ducked through the door first and swiftly closed and locked it behind him. Andy was especially angry, since he stuck with the role of Sound Bitch while John got to be Camera Man.

Inside, Jared dodged the guillotine blade, used it as a shield against the auto-turret fire, then had to use his shoes to deflect the giant homing shirukens. After the barrage was over, he Posed Mightily on top of the remains of the guillotine, shoes shredded and hair smoking.

"Seriously!" he shouted. "Take up a hobby or something! This is getting old!"

Ritsuko didn't look up from her terminal. "This office is booby-trapped as a matter of internal NERV policy mandated by the Japanese government. If you don't like it, take it up with them."

"I will," Jared groused, climbing down from the guillotine blade. "Rit-chan, I need my Mini-MAGI back."

"Then you've got your wires crossed, Pilot, I don't have it."

The Goons looked at the remains of his shoes and tried them on with a frown. "You can call me Jared, you know."

"Don't sass me, Pilot Dumb-ass," Ritsuko replied.

"I thought Andy was Pilot Dumb-ass," Jared mused.

"Fine. You lost your Mini-MAGI." Ritsuko tapped a few keys on her terminal, glared at the screen, and spun her chair around to face the intruder. "Congratulations on being the first person in NERV to utterly demolish a Mini-MAGI unit."

Jared wiped a nonexistent tear from one eye. "I'd like to thank the Academy... But seriously, I think that ninja stole it or something."

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow. "That dead ninja? The one whose body is in lockup?"

"This is a ninja we're talking about," Jared admonished.

"No, we're talking about a tightly integrated, passive locating circuit built into that Mini-MAGI. One that's not responding, indicating it's either not on Earth, or it has been destroyed. Ergo, congratulations; and here's the bill." Ritsuko reached into a random drawer on her desk and produced a single sheet of paper, handing it to Jared.

The sole item on the invoice is an experimental Mini-MAGI loan unit. The replacement cost was listed as a whopping five hundred million US dollars. Jared whimpered when he read the invoice, and gave Ritsuko his best puppy-dog eyes. "Doesn't killing an Angel earn me a little discount?"

"It does," the doctor conceded with an evil grin. "In fact, it takes a whole five dollars off the total."

"Can I make payments, or-"

Thunder raked across the ceiling as black flames roar to life behind Ritsuko. The doctor rose from the floor, floating. Her eyes burned crimson. Tiny mushroom clouds bloomed in her irises. Lightning struck the floor behind her and set fire to... well, to something, while a continuous thunder echoed through the office. Her voice cut the air like a bloody scythe. "YOU WILL GIVE ME ONE POUND OF FLESH!"

"Can I deliver it in liquid form?" Jared asked, ducking the requisite slap. "It's not like it's the end of the world, I'm just asking for a normal Mini-MAGI!"

The lighting and flames were gone. Ritsuko, eyes normal, leaned back in her chair with a smirk. "Sure. Just pay up."

Jared sighed, raised his hands as if to protest, sighed, and turned to leave. Opening the door, he found a glass being held an inch from his nose.

John was holding the glass to his ear, with Andy mimicking his pose to one side.

John quickly held the glass like he wasn't using it as a listening device, and looked casual. "We... were looking for a water fountain." John elbowed Andy, who gave a start and held the cup like a sane person.

From within, Ritsuko said, "That door is sound-proofed, you know."

Jared shrugged and stepped outside.

"We noti-" Andy began, cut off by John smacking him in the head.

While glaring at Andy, John said to Ritsuko, "What an odd thing to remark upon at this juncture."

"Isn't it?" Ritsuko replied as the door shut.

"Did you score?" John asked Jared.

"No," the Goon sighed. "I didn't get my Mini-MAGI, either."

John was about to say something derisive when an anonymous technician bolted down the corridor towards them and skidded to a stop, panting. He was a wretched man, born without any distinguishing features. All three Goons watched the young man catch his breath and wordlessly offer Jared an envelope.

Jared smiled at the unremarkable man. "Hey, Hiro Nabumushi, third level motor pool technician, C-grade. How's the cat doing?"

The young man replied in a non-committal manner. Jared took the envelope. "I'll see you around, Hiro. Remember; pool at our place tonight."

The young man nodded as Jared took the envelope and opened it. John and Andy talked with the technician for a moment while Jared read the anonymously delivered document.

As Jared closed the paper, the young tech bid his goodbyes.

Andy spotted Jared's grin first. "Good news?"

Jared nodded. "To the apartment, my fellow pilots."

* * *

"Oh, what the hell, dude?" John shouted. The ground-floor parking garage beneath their apartment building was, like all indoor parking areas, prone to very loud echoes. John didn't care, however. Right now he had a bone to pick... with a car. "This thing has to be illegal or something!"

The 'thing' John was pointing at was huge. Fire-engine red with black racing stripes positioned strategically on the sheet metal made it look like it was doing ninety miles an hour while parked. Repaired from when someone dropped a ceiling on it, the car gleamed ominously at the three Americans as if it were daring them to drive it granny style around Tokyo-3.

"Dude," Jared said, trying to placate the raging beast with slow, nonthreatening hand gestures and a sweet voice.

"This thing predates catalytic converters, environmental preservation, and the invention of the seatbelt! It's a four-wheel, dinosaur blood guzzling, murder machine! Gas mileage in the single digits! Smells like a petroleum refinery fire when it runs. If it runs!. You've made this entire parking lot an environmental disaster area. This... thing is a declaration of war on the atmosphere!"

"Dude,"

"Is there even a gas station in Tokyo-3?"

"Dude!"

"WHAT?" John yelled.

"You haven't heard the engine yet," said Jared.

John pointed at the car. "It's transmission was nicknamed the Rock-Crusher! I'm not going to hear it, I'm going to feel-"

Jared put on his best Buddha smile. "Just listen, my testosterone-deficient roommate, it will awaken the man in you and quell this troublesome logic clogging your food-hole."

John switched to Incendiary Glare #3 and gestured at the car, daring Jared to start it.

Jared hopped into the driver's seat. Cranking over, car sounded like a yawning dragon, awakening at its own pace. Soon it took a deep breath, and there was a roaring like a hundred cannons filling the space. Then a threatening snarl at rock concert volume levels. Car alarms were going off, not that anyone could hear them over the sonic equivalent of the apocalypse. Andy and John squinted, their eyes watering from the fumes. Local seismometers quivered. A man walking by the entrance to the parking garage was struck full-on by the sound waves and fell over dead.

The car had already killed someone, and it was only idling.

Jared killed the noise as Misato walked out of the elevator in a daze. She walked towards the car is if a trance and draped herself over the hood with a vacant look in her eyes and a slight drool.

After staring up Misato's skirt for a minute, John tried to speak, cleared his throat, and said, "Okay, you make a compelling argument,"

"WHAT?" Andy shouted, picking at one ear in a futile effort to stop the ringing.

Jared grinned. "Nice, right?"

"That... car rattles a part of my brain I try to suppress," John said.

The grin got wider. "So you like it."

"...Shut up."

"DID YOU SAY SOMETHING?" Andy asked at even higher volume levels than normal.

Even though it must have tore something, Jared's grin got even wider. He fired up the engine again, causing Misato to squeal, then coo as the arcane explosion-harnessing machinery contained under the sweep of the hood shook the chassis. The Goon gave the loud pedal a quick tap, causing a hospital a few blocks away to collapse, then killed the motor and stepped away from the car, closing the door.

A positively disheveled Misato stood and offered him a cigarette. "Was it good for you?"

"I hate you," John said.

Jared took the offered cigarette with a smile. He handed Misato a folded bit of paper. "Dinner. Tomorrow...ish. We'll take my car." He smiled, said to John, "I'm going to talk with the kids. Be back in a minute."

* * *

Asuka answered Jared's knock with a frown. "Now what?"

"I need to talk to Shinji," Jared said.

"He's in his room," Asuka said shortly.

He smiled. "Good. That's not far; I won't get lost."

"Fat chance," Asuka countered, and led him to Shinji's door. "Pervert delivery!" She announced.

"Asuka, I don't want to see your panties," Shinji said from within the room.

Face flaming, the kraut ripped the door open and drew a breath to lecture Shinji into a stain on the far wall.

She had not uttered a word when Jared shut the door in her face.

Asuka spent the next three seconds trying to figure out how Jared got into the room without her noticing.

Shinji shut his eyes and groaned in annoyance, not realizing the door was shut. "Asuka..."

"Well, I _was_ going to put on a seifuku and offer you a blow job, but if you can't even remember my name..." Jared affected a girlish huff.

The Goon barely contained his laughter as Shinji turned beat red and prayed for the earth to open up and swallow him whole.

Asuka jerked the door back open. "What in the HELL-"

Jared jerked a thumb towards the redhead. "If she wants to watch, it's five hundred yen extra."

"HENTAI!" Asuka screamed, launching a bone-shattering kick at the Pervert.

Jared was a step ahead of her. He was across the room in a flash and scooping up Shinji into his arms before Asuka's eyes caught up with him. She was ready to pursue him, right up until he jumped out of the room's open window with Shinji still in his arms.

Instead of following the Pervert, she went pale. "We're on the seventh floor!"

* * *

Shinji felt the jump, and while his stomach was floating up to around his ears, he didn't dare open his eyes. They landed hard, rolled without him getting hurt, and came to a stop in a room that smelled like... incense?

Shinji opened his eyes. He was curled up like a baby, held by the Goon who was kneeling on a polished hardwood floor in a tastefully decorated bedroom. Candles set the mood. A chilled bottle of champagne stood at the ready. And a woman lay on the bed that took up most of the room. About Misato's age. Average in looks and measurements, her body adorned by a filmy nothing that Shinji was certain he wasn't suppose to see for another year or two at least.

She held the boys' attention with a come-hither look and a salacious smile, gesturing to the bed as if to say, 'there's room for more.'

Jared winced, as if making a decision he didn't want to make. "I'm sorry, Kei, but not tonight. Got to teach a boy a little bit about being a man." He glanced meaningfully at Shinji.

Kei pouted. "Aw, and I can't help?"

"Well..." Jared considered. "Oh, no. At least not right this minute." He rose and opened the bedroom door. "I'll call."

Then they were out of the bedroom. A few steps took them to the apartment's front door, down the hall, where he stopped and set down the smaller Eva pilot.

"Now what?" Shinji asked.

"I was going to just talk with you, but... I seem to have gotten sidetracked."

"You panicked," Shinji said.

Jared sighed. "Okay, I panicked. Would you rather I used you as a human shield?"

"Not really, my father does that enough."

"Agreed. Well, I suppose this is as good a place as any. Or maybe not," he mused, then walked back to Kei's apartment and knocked on the door.

After a brief pause, Kei answered in a robe. "Changed your mind?"

"Yes, actually. Can we come in?"

Kei led them to the sitting area with a smile. "All right. Who's the kid?"

"Shinji Ikari. Ace Evangelion pilot and general bad-ass," Jared answered before Shinji could open his mouth to protest.

"Really?" Kei smiled brightly, then bowed to Shinji. "Kei Futaba, LG Pharmaceuticals. Allow me to say thank you for helping to defend this city against those horrible monsters. I know most people aren't happy with NERV, but... it's a war. We'll just have to get by."

"Kei is one of the few people in this city who isn't insane," Jared added for clarity.

Shinji just nodded.

"So, girl trouble?" Kei asked.

"Yeah," Jared replied. "Another pilot has the hots for him, but she's got issues."

Kei scoffed. "How typically male. Girl goes after what she wants. Suddenly she's 'crazy' and she's 'got issues'."

"No, she really does. Both of them do. These are very disturbed youth I'm dealing with!" The Goon waved an admonishing finger at Shinji. "And tossing her psychoactive hair products while she's bathing does not help."

"But Genoni-san put it in my hand!" Shinji said, finally rising to his own defense.

Jared waved off Shinji's argument. "Excuses, excuses."

"So why not call in a psychiatrist?" Kei asked, leaning back and giving Shinji and Jared a prime view of her charms.

Jared considered the idea. "Because I am quite sure my boss-Shinji's dad-would send ninja to kill me in my sleep if I ever got the request put through."

"My dad has ties to the Japanese Ninja Alliance?" Shinji asked.

Jared stared at the ace pilot for a few seconds, saying nothing, his face a visage of calculated blankness. Then, "Anyway, Asuka. She digs you. Let me give you a piece of advice: its high time you shag her rotten."

"What? Why?" Shinji expressed confused confusion as best he could.

"Choice of euphemism?" Jared asked Kei.

"Choice of euphemism," Kei confirmed with a knowing nod.

Jared watched her breasts jiggle for a moment, then dragged his attention back to Shinji. "Dude, hold her hand or something. The world is not going to come to an end if you try to form emotional ties with another human being. I guarantee it."

Shinji sighed. "You guarantee it?"

"Scout's honor," Jared offered the requisite hand sign.

"Can I go back to my room now?" Shinji asked.

"Sure, but instead of dodging Asuka or just stammering out an apology, face her head on. Look her right in the eye, and remember; there's no shame in running away."

"Yes there is," Shinji countered.

Jared's smirk faltered. "Er, right. Now scoot."

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow," Shinji stood, waved, and quickly let himself out, as Kei and Jared were both far to busy trying to ignite one another with lustful stares to bid him a proper good-bye.

* * *

Shinji closed the apartment door and tried to shelve his confusion. He didn't understand people. For the most part, this was not a problem. He did what he was told, regardless of how it made him feel or whether it made sense, and he was taken care of. That was simple. That _worked_ for him. He intellectually understood how Misato lived, but he couldn't put himself in her shoes. And the Americans?

He reached the elevator and mechanically punched the 'down' button. The doors opened to reveal a huge man in a cheap and ill-fitting suit. Sunglasses and radio earpiece completed the security personnel image.

The huge man said nothing, his huge neck speaking for him. Shinji shuffled into the elevator. His fingers selected the lobby button while his imagination taunted him with images of beating the security guy senseless and running off for absolutely no reason.

No, he didn't understand how the Americans lived life the way they did. He didn't even understand why they lived life the way they did, but maybe he was beginning to learn.

The security guy didn't see Shinji's smile, and perhaps that was for the best.

* * *

The chosen dining establishment for the evening's festivities was housed in a squat gray and glass skinned building that took up a whole city block. Jared squeezed the entire compliment into his two-door Chevelle and tore the Tokyo-3 streets a new one.

The cops measured his tickets by moving violations per second.

He rounded the last corner by the restaurant with all four tires squealing, the engine roaring, trailing a cloud of carcinogenic smoke two city blocks behind his chrome bumper. Then he slid the car sideways into the valet holding space like he had practiced the move a thousand times. Blindfolded.

John weakly disembarked the car. His immaculate tuxedo was brushed clear of nonexistent dust while his feet made sure he was on firm and unmoving earth. Andy tumbled from the car in a roll and stood unsteadily next to his fellow Goon. His own tux was rumpled in a few places in just such a way to suggest that the rumpling was designed into the suit and not a result of the abusive conditions under which was it was being worn.

"Where are we?" Andy asked.

Both looked at the sign above them, attempting to leverage Psycho Sensei's teachings. Reflexively covering their heads, they squinted at the neon kanji.

Jared stepped out of the car in a tuxedo that fit him like a wet rag wrapped around a bent pipe. He glanced at the sign, decided not to waste the brain cells, and went with, "Here."

The other Goons shot him dirty looks.

John gestured to the neon sign. "Did you see this?"

Jared ignored the glow. "Misato recommended the place."

As if speaking her name had summoned her from the black vinyl of the car's interior, Misato emerged.

Jared and Andy immediately tried to mime an angelic chorus, but didn't work out which chorus to mimic beforehand, and would up shouting Latin at each other in the background while Misato posed in her new black dress. It was short, it was tight, and it left very little to the imagination.

A valet materialized at her elbow, bowing deeply and offering a hand to escort her away from the car. "My lady," he oozed.

Jared stopped the shouting match with Andy and rolled up one sleeve of his jacket, approaching the valet menacingly. He was beaten to the punch when Kaji stepped out of the car in his own crisp tux. The valet visibly wilted as Misato took the triple-agent's offered arm.

Jared discretely rolled down his sleeve and slipped the valet a large bill, muttering to himself in a vaguely eastern European accent, "Just like you Japanese... always overdressing for the wrong occasions." Then he shouted into the car, "All right kids, everybody off the fun bus!"

Rei stepped out in a blue satin dress and looked around. Asuka and Shinji followed closely, Asuka in a wine-colored dress and Shinji in a tux. Both looked more than a little green around the gills, holding each others' hands for support. As soon as they got a lung worth of fresh air, they abruptly separated, stealing furtive glances at each other as they walked up the steps to the entrance to wait next to Misato and Kaji.

Then Toji tumbled out, kissing the sidewalk on contact. "Ground! Oh, holy Earth! I am never riding in that car again!"

"Philistine!" Jared howled.

John shook his head and offered Rei his own arm, following Asuka and Shinji to the restaurant's entrance. "Misato," he called to the Major, "I'll never know how you fit a gun under that dress. It looks like it had to be sewed on. Or did someone just throw a can of paint at you?"

"The price I pay for style, I guess," Misato countered. "Who's got the reservations?"

John shrugged. "I thought you did. Maybe Jared does, he never tells us anything, right Andy?" John looked around. "Andy?"

"NERV, party of ten?" Misato asked the doorman hopefully, shoulders drooping as the severe-looking man shook his head.

"Where the hell did Toji and Jared go?" John asked, looking around.

The front door to the restaurant opened, and Jared's head appeared in the gap. Thankfully-or unfortunately, depending on your point of view-his body was hidden by the door, which meant his head wasn't floating in the air via supernatural means, guts and gore hanging from the torn flesh that used to be his neck. The Pervert took in the group. "Hey, get inside, you lot!"

The doorman spun around in surprise. "You! No reservation! DIE!"

Jared yelped and withdrew his head as throwing knives embedded themselves in the door with loud thunks.

The doorman's face turned purple with rage. Then the valet started Jared's car. The explosive sound of the engine catching reached the doorman, and he froze, clutching as his chest. Then he collapsed.

The valet dared to touch the gas pedal, and the car did a huge smoking burnout and took off like a JATO system had been activated. The valet screamed. Perhaps in elation, perhaps in panic. In any case, he and the muscle car from hell were out of sight before he found second gear.

Jared slowly peeked out of the door again as the valet "drove" the car off into the distance. Maybe the parking lot was... on the other side of town? From the sounds the engine made, the valet could have been winning the Indy 500. Jared looked at the unmoving doorman and cleared his throat. "Um... right. Well, Toji's picked out a table, so-"

The doorman coughed, stirring. Jared knelt at the man's side. "Are you hurt?"

The doorman's hand shook as he gripped Jared's sleeve with the last of his mortal strength. He coughed again. "It... was not so long ago that... I was... like you."

"Really?" Jared asked in a respectful whisper.

The doorman stirred again. "Indeed. We... we fought for honor."

Jared nodded.

The doorman's breath was labored. "Do you... fight for honor?" He eyes, clouding over, searched desperately for an answer.

"I do," Jared replied, tears strangling his eyes.

"Go forth..." The doorman's voice was fading, his eyes unfocused. "Go... forth and..."

The man went limp. Little black X's appeared over his closed eyes as he sloughed off this mortal coil.

Jared rose, solemn, wiped at his eyes, and said, "Anyway, come on in."

The sound of wounded tires screeching echoed through the cloudless night as the group collectively avoided looking at each other as they entered the restaurant.

* * *

Andy took in the center of the restaurant with a smile. The place was simply a massive arcade around which a semicircle of intimate tables were scattered. A bar occupied the corner adjacent to the entrance, while the corner opposite hosted a small dance floor. Space was clearly at a premium, even though the building took up most of an entire city block. That could be blamed on the two hundred or so arcade machines that comprised the arcade.

"Ah, gamer's mecha... Er, Mecca..." Andy muttered.

A waiter swiftly appeared to give Jared a dirty look.

"Good service here," Jared said approvingly.

"I've only been here once," Toji said. "Decent food, great game selection."

"I've never been." Misato subtly elbowed Kaji. "I've heard about it, but..."

"Niiice," John smiled at the arcade machines, idly cracking his knuckles.

"Um... impressive," Shinji offered to the spectacle.

While the others took their seats like sane people, Andy grabbed the Ace by the shoulders, lifted him from his feet, and shook him like a rag doll. "THAT'S ALL YOU CAN SAY?"

Shinji gave Andy his best 'I am a shell of a human being' look and dialed his voice to 'robot' before speaking. "Yes."

While the other cracked up laughing, Andy set the pilot down and shook his head at the tragedy of it all.

* * *

After a few hours of gaming, the group settled in at a large round table and made their orders for sustenance. And thusly did the 'small talk' commence.

Misato opened with a daring, "So, how's this "training' coming along, guys?"

"The master never reveals his secrets," John replied, sounding mysterious.

"That means I'd better not say anything, right?" Jared added.

Misato shifted her attention to Jared. "You, mister, had Rit-chan tying her underwear in knots when your Mini-MAGI got blown up."

"That'd be a neat trick. Got pictures?" Jared's head rocked back from the impact Misato's palm to his right cheek. "How did you slap me from across this table!" He exclaimed, and suddenly his head was rocking back again from a palm impacting his left cheek. "Damn it, that gag was old when I was kid!" He huffed.

"I don't think the training has been going well at all," Asuka put in.

"You can use ki blasts in your Eva, why are you complaining?" John asked.

"I can do a bigger one," Andy said, bouncing in his seat like an eager five-year-old.

"Shut up," Jared countered.

"See?" Asuka prompted Misato.

The Major sighed and waved for Jared and Andy to stay in their seats. "Children." She shifted her attention to the First Children. "What about you, Rei?"

"genoni says i am making progress."

"But John couldn't fight his way out a..." Jared found Rei looking at him. It was one of those stares that carried no weight, but still made him feel like she was calculating how many feet of his small intestine she could wrench out of his eye sockets and still let him live. He quickly swallowed the rest of his comment and sipped at the broth in his bowl of soba noodles.

"She has excellent control. She'll be fine," John said, favoring the albino with a smile. He studiously ignored Andy and the huge hand-painted sign the Goon of Destruction was waving in the air behind Rei.

The one with the English words reading 'EVIL ALBINO GIRL!' painted on it.

The other pilots watched with frank amusement as the evening's entertainment began. Jared opened his mouth to John, figuring him a slightly less dangerous target than Ayanami. "John, I thought you said you hadn't slept with her yet. How could you possibly-"

John tackled Jared. Dishes and drinks went flying. The restaurant-slash-arcade owner ducked into his office to check on his insurance policy, to see if he was covered in the event of Americans getting inside the restaurant.

While the brawl raged across the restaurant, Misato turned to her charge. "What about you, Shinji-kun?"

"Umm..." Shinji glanced at Asuka, then cast his eyes at his own bowl of ramen.

"Misato," Andy intoned in a cordial voice, "Like John said, the master does not reveal his training secrets. The men of this outfit will be suitably prepared." He continued, speaking under his breath but still loudly enough to be heard across town. "Not that I was given much to work with."

"I heard that," Toji said.

"You're on the other side of the table!"

"You're loud enough to be heard back in America!"

Andy roared and jumped across the table. "That's IT!"

He was aiming to tackle Toji, but the nimble youth ducked at the last second, letting Andy crash to the floor. The Goon flipped onto his feet in the blink of an eye and gave chase, spying Suzuhara threading his way through some pinball machines.

"Not again," Shinji moaned.

Kaji looked back and forth at the two fights thoughtfully. "This looks a little promising."

Misato shrugged, instantly capturing two hundred percent of Kaji's attention. "Sort of..."

Didja see what I did there? He did a double take, get it?

_Sigh._

Rei calmly sipped her drink. The whole table watched while the Andy-Toji ball collided with the Jared-John ball.

Asuka sighed as the tangle of limbs and curses turned and came at the table. With a disgruntled sigh she jumped into the fray, her giant wooden mallet cocked back and ready to crack skulls.

She landed knee-first on Jared's face, and missed John's head by a full hair. She took him out with a high heel to the face, his nose taking the brunt of the heel spike. Her back-swing nailed Toji. Andy rolled clear, hands on the defensive.

Asuka kicked Jared in the groin, set her stance, and swung. The face of the mallet kissed Andy gently on the lips, only hard enough to send him crashing into a pinball machine, eyes swirling.

The mallet went away. Asuka dusted herself off to a light applause from Misato and Kaji. Then she froze, eyes wide.

From the floor, a single arm was raised, traveling under her dress.

Jared's arm.

Misato stopped clapping. Kaji fumbled for his phone.

Andy woke and pointed at her hair, screaming. "She's gone to PLAID!"

Jared yanked his hand back as if Asuka's butt was on fire. "Um... oops?"

Asuka began to cry. She wandered to the table and collapsed into her chair. Misato still hadn't moved. Kaji had his phone set to camera mode a minute to late, and lowered the device slowly, glancing uncertainly at the Major.

John, Andy, Toji, and Shinji were standing over Jared, looking more dangerous than a gang of tattooed bikers. John grabbed him by the lapels and hauled him to his feet. "What do you want on your tombstone?"

Jared thought quickly. "Pepperoni and cheese."

"We'll all out of cheese," John growled, as if threatening to wipe out Jared's family.

The quartet of pilots then went to work on the Pervert. Kaji eagerly turned his phone on the group, for posterity's sake. And maybe to pick up a few pointers.

Misato finally gave up asking Asuka what was wrong and held her.

It was a touching scene.

Jared was just being inconsiderate. "OW! NOT IN THE FACE! NOT IN THE FA-"

* * *

Later, at La Casa de Goon, after stopping by the hospital and explaining a few things to the police, and getting scolded by Gendo... okay, it's a lot later that evening. About four the following morning, actually.

"I don't get it. What did I do?" Jared asked from his full-body cast, propped against the Goons' card table.

"I thought your jaw was wired shut," John said. "Any fours?"

Jared moved his jaw around and spit out a ball of shiny wire. "Go fish."

John pawed the cards for a moment. "Jaw," he prompted.

"I paid off the docs and shut up for the night."

"Beyond the fact that's physically impossible," John started.

"I can do amazing things with my tongue," Jared inserted.

John made a face, like he had just spent eight hours making out with an octopus. "Ugh, don't remind me. But, you can't possibly shut up for four hours."

Jared smiled. "Bite me. Any queens?"

John sighed and handed over the cards. "We're fucked."

Andy, asleep in the next seat, snored loudly in reply, then 'woke up.'

"Not necessarily," Jared mused.

John shook his head. "You're in a full-body cast, Andy couldn't fend of Asuka, even though he didn't do anything... Got any fours?"

"I'm a ninja," said Jared.

"And I'm Batman," said John. "Any fours?"

Jared's few free fingers flicked a card towards John. "I wasn't a ninja a week ago."

The Goons looked at one another, silent. Neither wished to open this can of worms.

"Yer still not a ninja," Andy yawned, indifferent.

"Right, and there's no colleges around here that offer degrees in Ninjitsu," John snarked.

Jared worked a hand out of his full-body cast, liberating a pamphlet as well. He dropped the pamphlet on the table and hid the hand under thirty pounds of bandages.

John picked up the paper and leafed through the kanji. Then he looked at the cover-stared, really-and looked at Jared, trying to say something but just moving his jaw aimlessly, chewing air. He then blinked and repeated the movements, like his brain kept slipping out of gear. On the third round, he shook the pamphlet at Jared threateningly, still masticating mixed gases.

Andy blinked and went cross-eyed looking at the writing on the pamphlet. After a minute, his brain found the focus controls and he sat up as if struck by lightning. Snatching the pamphlet from John's hand, "This place is accredited. Sweet! Hm... no cyborg ninja program?"

"Where the hell did you get this?" John finally asked.

"It was wound into these bandages. Like a flier or something," Jared explained. "Any sixes?"

"Go fish. Anyone could have left this for you." John frowned.

"Well, I leave you with that mystery." Jared jerked his body. The bandages fell away. He flexed various joints, smiling as everything worked properly. "Andy?"

Andy shook himself, threw the pamphlet on the table, and stood. "I am ready."

"Hey, wait a minute, how did you get to be a ninja?" John asked.

"How did you get to be Batman?" Jared countered.

John shrugged. "You got me. I'm not John, I'm a multi-billionaire who killed your friend and took his place so I could punish criminals in a fictional city from an anime."

"That makes sense," Andy nodded. "Roof?"

"Roof," Jared agreed. To John, "See you later, Wayne."

John waved as they departed. After the door closed, he searched the table and chairs. "Hey, where the fuck did that pamphlet go?"

* * *

A little later, on the roof of Apartment Block Seven. The night sky was an unfolded blanket of stars set with a brilliant full moon. The fightin' Goons didn't take in the view. They merely took up positions on opposite corners of the roof, looking grim and dangerous, squinting at each other...

And finally, someone had to say it.

Andy sighed, "This roof is pretty big."

"Yeah," Jared agreed.

"What?" Andy shouted back. "I can't hear you."

"We should stand a little closer!" Jared shouted back.

The two moved to a more reasonable distance, stretching and circling one another. Without an apparent signal, they attacked. Punches, kicks, elbows, and knees were exchanged. A fair trade, as no-one landed even a glancing blow for the first minute. Then they drew apart.

"FOOL!" Andy thundered, assuming a familiar pose. "GALLAT GUN-"

Jared's pose was also familiar. "KAMEHAME-"

Now, normally someone would make a pithy remark at this point. And in the defense of universal humor, a pigeon did coo, but it was in New York 2 and easily ignored here in central Japan. Yet in place of pithy commentary, something interesting did happen.

The Goons' hands began to glow. At this point, a normal person would be screaming about fire, or perhaps second-guessing that decision to skip their meds today. However, these were Goons, and they stared like retarded moths at the glow, even as they called out their attacks.

"-FIRE?"

"-HAAAAAA?"

Beams of coherent energy lanced out from the fire. The sound accurately mimicked the eminent end of the world. The Goons stared like retarded moths about to suffer severe concussions.

And then the beams met, and a hundred-foot tall pillar of fire erupted from the meeting point, flashing into the sky like... well, like a pillar of fire a hundred feet tall. The Goons smiled, then got knocked unconscious by the shock wave.

* * *

John, playing some video games a twenty-two floors below, paused when he heard the explosion. It didn't have the sharp 'whump' of a flash grenade or the 'crack' of demolitions. He glanced at the window in time to see some large metal box falling by their balcony.

The muscles around his left eye twitched.

One minute, twenty-nine seconds later, a panting John Genoni was staring at the roof access door. The door was intact but bizarrely bowed inward, warped as if someone had pointed a huge laser at it from outside. He took a deep breath and kicked the door open.

The roof wasn't quite the fire-scorched wasteland he had dreaded while tempting the heart attack gods with his mad twenty-two floor dash, but it hardly looked like the place to have a picnic. Nothing smoldered, though most of the air conditioning units were melted, distorted, and kind of smashed sideways as if they had been hit by a super-hot shock wave or something. And then there were the two units that had 'caught' dumb and dumber.

Both Goons were out, their clothes intact but scorched and curiously smoldering.

"I hope they're dead," he said reverently. Yet both of the unconscious Goons' chests were regularly rising and falling. "Damn! I'm just not that lucky. Oh wait, this means I get to kill them for shooting ki blasts. No, I'm not in charge." His face fell, then a smile grabbed hold of it. "Oh wait, _Misato_ gets to kill them slowly." Clearly, the only thing left to do was dance a jig.

While singing.

"Ding dong, my friends are dead! Oh happy day, I'm glad to say, that my friends are dead!" If only he had a top hat and a cane...

Then Andy sat up. "Quiet, I'm trying to enjoy the-YOU!"

John stopped mid-jig and frowned. "Go back to being dead, you're ruining my fun."

Jared sat up, partially. Groaning like someone was twisting a knife in his guts, "Okay, we're officially fucked."

"_Now_ we're fucked? What about five minutes ago?"

Jared got to his feet. "Things change. Didn't you get my memo?"

"Things change? Things change?" John deflated and shrugged. It was dark and he was tired, and this explosion was going to bring the fury of NERV down on them. Jared and Andy might as well have signed their death warrants, but John was beginning to think that maybe they'd try to pin this on him too. And then what?

"You know what, I don't care. NERV guys are gonna be here in a minute, and I'm going to get some sleep." Or think of a way to make sure they weren't clinically dissected in the bowels of NERV by sunrise. He turned and opened the roof access door, finding Jared standing inside of the stairwell. "And you quit doing that!"

Jared tried to look innocent, failed. "What am I allowed to do?"

"Burn in hell," John replied.

Jared went wide-eyed at something over John's shoulder. The taller Goon whipped around in a defensive crouch to see Andy pointing a palm at them, frowning. As soon as John's eyes found the Maniac's, Andy tried to look innocent, which was impossible no matter what he was doing.

* * *

A few minutes later, the Goons retreated to their apartment, surprised that they weren't shot at by NERV security forces en route. All three listened for the wail of distant sirens, or the 'pffft' of dart guns, and heard nothing but eerie silence, overlaid with the eternally chirping cicadas.

Inside the apartment, they sat at the only table and looked at one another; John nervously, Andy with a huge smirk, and Jared pensive.

"So..." John prompted.

"She said was eighteen!" Jared shouted, then noticed the other two Goons staring at him and tried to relax. "Sorry, force of habit."

John shook his head, sparing the door a quick glance. "Okay, we have no cover story for this. You idiots have been screaming attack names at each other all of NERV for weeks now. You just blew up the roof in plain view of countless surveillance cameras. We can't talk our way out of this."

"Out of what?" Andy asked.

"Throwing ki blasts in hyper-secret experimental war machines with a host of unknown abilities is one thing. Being able to flattened armored troops with our bare hands... we're dead fucking meat." John sighed, then watched Jared sweat, look around the otherwise empty apartment nervously, and raise his hand like a schoolboy. "Yes?"

Jared spared the apartment another look. "What if I edited all of the security tapes?"

John scoffed. "You? In the next five minutes you can erase the whole incident without leaving a data trail back to our front door? I'd like to see that."

"Not me personally. An AI system," Jared offered.

John sighed. There were only two things close a functioning AI in _Evangelion_ and they had neither at their disposal. If things were going in their favor for once, Gendo would have one of those projects on the back burner for the moment. "We are not breaking into NERV and hacking the Mini-MAGI."

"Who said anything about the Mini-MAGI?" Jared actually looked innocent this time, and that face sent shivers down John's spine.

"...Explain," John ordered.

"I stole-er, borrowed... well, this chip fell into my hands a little bit ago, and I figured out that its the essential components of an AI system. You'd need some bulk processing power to interface with it... and our Mini-MAGI happen to have that processing power. Give me a week and I could probably hook the two up and build an AI able to edit that security footage."

"That's a great Plan B. Anyone got a Plan A?" John's face propped up a smile, which morphed into a grimace when Andy picked up his hand of cards from the game they'd aborted just minutes ago.

The Goon of Destruction looked over his cards and asked John, "Got any sixes?"

* * *

"Readings steady, Commander," the gruff commando said.

"Thank you, Corporal," Misato said crisply. She did not want to be here. She did not want to be woken up before dawn by a wall-rattling explosion and have to take down her neighbors at gunpoint before breakfast, but the fate of the world was in the balance and... hell, she just wanted to get five more minutes of sleep. Kaji had kept her up until three friggin' a.m.! "In three... two..." She raised her fist. "One." And knocked gently.

A few seconds later, the entry panel by the door switched from red to green. She took a deep breath and tried to will away the dark circles she could feel hanging off of her lower eyelids. Then she banged the panel with her elbow and the door slid open with a whir.

The idiots of the day sat around their small dining table playing a card game. They had put it on pause to look at her. Andy had the expressiveness of a brick, John looked tired and in control as always, but Jared looked like a squirrel on LSD. She wondered if he'd stay in his seat should she sneeze. "Well, are you three going to come quietly?" She asked.

John shrugged. "I don't see why not."

"_John,_" Jared hissed desperately.

"Chill," John set his cards on the table. "We're all going back to NERV for a nice little chat."

"Okay," Jared relented. "Want me to knock out Andy?"

* * *

Misato dragged all of the pilots into briefing room four, setting the Americans in the front row. Ayanami was absent, but everyone was either too tired or too scared of Misato's bloodshot I'm-this-close-to-murdering-people stare to comment on the fact.

She started by yelling at the Goons. "You three are in _big_ trouble!"

All three Goons mimed fear, "Ooooh."

The Major drew her sidearm and leveled it at Andy. She looked like she really, really wanted to shoot him. "I really, really want to shoot you. So shut up. We've got a major problem here."

"This is no-" John was interrupted by Misato's gun. The Goon considered the hole in the wall behind and slightly to the left of his head, and closed his mouth.

"NERV... no one can afford to have you three wandering around the city with the ability to blow up buildings at a whim, with your bare hands."

"We can't do that," Jared said quietly.

"Why not?" Misato asked.

Jared crossed his eyes following Misato's gun. "Maybe a wall or two, but not a building."

"Are you an engineer or something?" Misato quipped.

"Yeah, double major, I think." John said.

"There's a lot of overlap in the course requirements," Jared added, not taking his eyes off of Misato's sidearm.

Misato drew back from the Goons and very slowly holstered her gun. "Ritsuko wants to cut one of you three apart to figure out how you did that."

"_I_ didn't shoot off any ki blasts," John insisted.

Misato continued, "The Commander approved."

"He's a prick," Andy grunted.

And the room fell silent.

Shinji blinked, yawned, and pulled his head off of his hand. "Wait a minute. Cut them up?"

Misato's gun was steady.

"Shinji," John said carefully, as if the remaining words might kill someone, "how would you like to learn how to do ki blasts?"

"That's impossible," Shinji said.

"They did it." John pointed at Andy and Jared.

"They're not human," Misato insisted.

"Oh, says you," John said.

"Says Doctor Akagi and... _SCIENCE_!" Misato countered.

John restricted his surprise to raising a single eyebrow. Misato's had knocked something loose in his brain, and now he had to pin down the idea and see if it was worth exploring. "Ritsuko can play with her little test tubes later. We have a real problem to deal with here, and they're called Angels. Now, would you like get rid of half of your... your defenders of earth?"

"Three-sevenths," Asuka corrected.

"Right, three-sevenths of your defenders of earth, or would you rather make all seven of us truly bad-ass? And where's Toji?"

"Don't change the subject, Genoni," Misato growled. "We're not kings here. If the public-and by extension, the government of Japan-does not like what we're doing here, they could shut us down. The choice I have now is not between having you three teach the Children or not, it's between being able to defeat the Angels or not. Genoni, I'd rather send these three and Toji into battle than have all seven of you in a government prison and be reduced to firing N2 devices at the Angels."

John sighed. "So the Commander expects one of us to cave in the force of your feminine charms and sacrifice ourselves for the freedom of the others?"

"I am _not_ seducing any of you," Misato said flatly.

They'd danced this dance before. As long as he could keep her distracted with talking, he might have a chance of saving all of their skins. "But we're too selfish and more likely to turn on one another, giving him an excuse to lock up all three of us, which from their point of view would be more prudent... even if we're needed to fight the Angels. He wouldn't lock us up for no reason because we'd rebel."

Misato slowly holstered her gun. "Genoni..."

"If the Commander wants to frighten us, tell him he has failed," Jared said loudly. He didn't spare anyone else in the room so much as a glance. "If this was a test, we have passed."

"I'm calling Ritsuko." Misato reached for her phone.

John pressed his fingertips together absently, mind working furiously until it presented a solution. A crazy, crazy solution that was the only sane option left to him. As Misato began pressing buttons, he looked up. "Give us two days. Lock us in our apartment and we'll figure out how we did it, and how to give the pilots the same abilities... and if our explanation of how we do ki blasts does not satisfy you, then you can have Andy."

"Hey!" Andy objected.

"So you're saving your own neck?" Misato shouted. She almost seemed angry that he'd hang Mucha out to dry.

John shrugged, fingertips still mated. "You wouldn't believe me if I gave myself up. Besides, I haven't done a ki blast yet."

"Could you?" Misato asked, closing her phone.

"Right this second with a gun to my head?" John asked.

Misato obliged him that, rhetorical phrase or not.

"That was a hypothetical question," John protested quietly.

Misato didn't crack even the beginnings of a smile. "Well, now it's practical."

He briefly considered trying out Goku's Instant Transmission. "There's nothing I could do right now that wouldn't break something or someone. And this is all irrelevant, in two days, you won't care about this, I promise. Ritsuko would just put me on the table as a control anyway."

"What are you planning?" Misato asked.

"I don't know yet," John lied.

She withdrew the gun and looked him over, then glanced at Jared and Andy, who had sat perfectly still, watching the exchange. The sight of those two behaving probably rattled her more than the notion that they could be packing heat buck naked. "You have until tomorrow morning," she said at last.

John stood up, bowed politely and made for the door while gesturing for Andy and Jared to follow.

From inside the room, Asuka yawned. "Now that we're done with Stupid American Theater, can I go back to bed?"

"Sure," Misato answered. "I've got to call Ritsuko anyway."

The door slid shut, and the trio moved down the hall. After a dozen steps, Andy smacked John in the head.

"What was that about, Genoni?"

"We're going back to the apartment; we're shutting the blinds, unplugging the TV, radio, internet, phones, hiding any books we have, any thing to identify the rest of the world is gone." John stopped at the elevators and pushed the button. It took a full minute as John remained silent and dismissed any attempt of the other Goons for more information. Finally the elevator dinged and the doors opened, the Goons entered and pressed the button for ground level. As the doors began to close, John finally said, "We're going to retcon Eva."

* * *

End Book 1 of Neon Genesis Goonvangelion.

Book 2 will be along in a couple of months.


End file.
